HR: 0800h
AN: T11A-1229    [Abstracts]
TI: Lithospheric Structure of East Antarctica: Results From the First Year of the SSCUA Broadband Seismic Deployment
AU: * Reading, A M
EM: anya@rses.anu.edu.au
AF: Australian National University, Research School Earth Sciences, Canberra, ACT 0200 Australia
AB: Recent geological and geochronological work has changed our concept of the former Gondwana continents surrounding a central Archaean craton, East Antarctica. The revised tectonic framework shows mobile belts and tectonic province boundaries which correlate well with East Antarctica's former neighbours in the supercontinent and trend perpendicular to the present day Antarctic coastline. Constraints are however restricted to those areas where the rock is exposed above the ice. Indirect, geophysical methods are required to map the extent of tectonic provinces in the continental interior and provide information on the deep structure. Following a pilot deployment in 2001/02, a set of 6 remote broadband earthquake recording stations were deployed in the Lambert Glacier region, East Antarctica, from the coast at 65øS deep into the interior to a latitude of 75øS. The aim was to determine the Seismic Structure of the Continent Under Antarctica (SSCUA) using a variety of seismological techniques. The stations were solar-powered and hence shut down during the Antarctic winter to re-commence recording after the return of daylight in the austral spring. After one year, 3 stations were relocated to further test contemporary terrane models of the lithosphere in this region. At the present time (December 2004) recording continues across the deployment with most stations due to be uplifted at the end of the 2004/05 summer season. Results of receiver function inversions for seismic structure beneath the recording stations of the first main deployment are presented. To the west of the Lambert Glacier, the Rayner province extends from Mawson Station to Beaver Lake with a fairly deep Moho at 42 km. To the east, seismic velocity profiles have a different character, showing slower crustal velocities. A province boundary exists between the Reinbolt Hills and the northern Mawson Escarpment where the crust is shallower at 34 km. These results are the first determinations of the seismic structure of the lithosphere in this area of continental East Antarctica
DE: 9310 Antarctica
DE: 8107 Continental neotectonics
DE: 7205 Continental crust (1242)
DE: 7218 Lithosphere and upper mantle
SC: Tectonophysics [T]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting