Abstract
Crustal thickness variations in the Aegean region and implications for the extension of continental crust
Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Saint Louis University, Saint Louis, Missouri, USA
Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Saint Louis University, Saint Louis, Missouri, USA
Department of Geophysics, Faculty of Engineering, Dokuz Eylül University, Buca-Izmir, Turkey
School of Geology, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma, USA
Kandilli Observatory and Earthquake Research Institute, Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey
We installed 5 broadband and 45 short-period temporary seismic stations, distributed partly as a dense, 100-km-long, N-S linear
array and partly as a regional network, throughout the Menderes Massif of western Turkey in order to study crust-upper mantle
structure and seismicity. In this study, we have combined teleseismic waveform data from these stations with data from several
permanent seismic stations to determine crustal thickness variations in the Aegean region. Receiver function studies at seven
broadband stations, using the H-
stacking method, have yielded crustal thicknesses and V
p
/V
s
ratios over a broad region of the Aegean. A more detailed crustal image was obtained in the central Menderes Massif, where
we applied common conversion point stacking to receiver functions obtained from the N-S linear array. The results show a general
trend of westward crustal thinning from 36 km in central Anatolia to 28–30 km in the central Menderes Massif to 25 km beneath
the Aegean Sea. The results also indicate that crustal thinning in the Aegean is not uniform in the N-S extensional direction.
The crust is thinner in the central Menderes Massif (28–30 km of crustal thicknesses) and the Cycladic Massif (25–26 km) than
in surrounding regions where crustal thicknesses are 32–34 km. The long-lived elevated Moho under the metamorphic core complexes
suggests that the lower crust in the Aegean region is at least 3 times more viscous than that in the Basin and Range Province,
where the Moho is much flatter.
Received 10 April 2005; accepted 5 October 2005; published 6 January 2006.
Citation: (2006), Crustal thickness variations in the Aegean region and implications for the extension of continental crust, J. Geophys. Res., 111, B01301, doi:10.1029/2005JB003770.
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