3D crustal structure of the Eastern Alpine region from ambient noise tomography

Abstract

The tectonic evolution of the European Eastern Alps within the Alpine orogeny is still under debate. Open questions include: the link between surface, crustal and mantle structures; the nature of the Moho gap between the two plates; the relationship between the Alps, the adjacent foreland basin and the Bohemian Massif lithospheric blocks. We collected one year of continuous data recorded by ~250 broadband seismic stations –55 of which installed within the EASI AlpArray complementary experiment– in the Eastern Alpine region. Exploiting surface wave group velocity from seismic ambient noise, we obtained an high-resolution 3D S-wave crustal model of the area.

The Rayleigh-wave group-velocity from 3 s to 35 s are inverted to obtain 2-D group velocity maps with a resolution of ~15 km. From these maps, we determine a set of 1D velocity models via a Neighborhood Algorithm, resulting in a new 3D model of S-wave velocity with associated uncertainties. The vertical parameterization is a 3-layer crust with the velocity properties in each layer described by a gradient. Our final model finds high correlation with specific geological features in the Eastern Alps up to 20 km depth, the deep structure of the Molasse basin and important variations of crustal thickness and velocities as a result of the Alpine orogeny post-collisional evolution. The strength of our new information relies on the absolute S-wave crustal velocity and the velocity gradient unambiguously sampled along the Moho, only limited by the amount and quality distribution of the data available.