HR: 14:50h
AN: S52G-05 INVITED     [PDF]
TI: Understanding the Transition From Continental to Oceanic Rifting in the Northern Ethiopian Rift - the EAGLE Project
AU: * Stuart, G
EM: graham@earth.leeds.ac.uk
AF: School of Earth Sciences, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT United Kingdom
AB: A consortium of UK (Leeds, Leicester, Royal Holloway, Edinburgh,), US (Stanford, UTEP, Penn State,) and Ethiopian (Addis Ababa) universities are exploring the kinematics and dynamics of continental breakup through the Ethiopia Afar Geoscientific Lithospheric Experiment (EAGLE), which aims to probe the crust and upper mantle structure between the Main Ethiopian (continental) and Afar (ocean spreading) rifts. EAGLE is a multi-disciplinary study centered around a set of passive and controlled-source seismic experiments, and incorporates additional magnetotelluric, gravity, GPS and petrological studies. The initial Phase I seismic experiment consisted of a deployment of 30 broadband seismometers for a period of 16 months (Oct. 2001 to Jan. 2003) over a 250 km x 250 km area of the rift valley and its uplifted flanks. P- and S-wave tompography from teleseismic traveltime residuals, SKS splitting analyses and receiver functions provide images of crust and deep earth structure. The Phase II seismic experiment consisted of a further 50 broadband instruments for a period of 4 months over a 200 km x 100 km area encompassing 4 magmatic segments in the Main Ethiopian Rift. These recordings have furthered our understanding of the location of active seismicity, fault plane mechanisms and segmentation of rift crustal structure. Phase III consisted of the deployment of a further 1100 seismic instruments during a controlled source seismic project involving 20 shots being fired into one 450 km cross-rift profile (Profile 1), one 450 km axial profile (Profile 2), and a dense 2D array of instruments in a 150 km diameter circle around the profiles1 intersection (Profile 3), all centered on the magmatically active Nazret region. The crust and upper mantle velocity models derived provide estimates of total crustal thinning across the rift, assess the role of basement in the location of major faults and magmatic segments, and determine whether significant underplating takes place. An 18 sounding magnetotelluric profile along the cross rift profile I provides additional constraints on the nature and distribution of crustal heterogeneity, and images melt accumulation zones. New gravity and geodetic information have also been acquired.
DE: 7218 Lithosphere and upper mantle
DE: 7230 Seismicity and seismotectonics
DE: 8109 Continental tectonics--extensional (0905)
DE: 8180 Tomography
DE: 9305 Africa
SC: Seismology [S]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting