Collaborative Research: High Resolution Teleseismic Crust-Mantle Studies Across a Major Archean-Proterozoic Suture in Western United States

University Of Colorado At Boulder, Boulder CO

Investigators

Abstract

Ongoing studies of the "Deep Probe" teleseismic transects, which cross a major Archean-Proterozoic suture in Wyoming and Colorado, pose questions that analysis of the co-located Lodore broadband data can address. The very dense teleseismic sampling provided by this array - one year of recording from 33 stations distributed in a 2-D grid at 5-10 km station spacing - will allow detailed imaging of crustal and mantle structure. We propose to use 3-dimensional Kirchoff migration to: 1) depth migrate Pms and Ppms Moho arrivals and other potential discontinuities observed in the upper 100 km; 2) migrate the P-wave coda to search for coherent near-surface scattering due to topography and sedimentary basins; 3) image the amplitude/sharpeness/scattering characteristics of the 410 and 660 km discontinuities. Integration of this proposed research with our Deep Probe results will allow us to better define what processes are currently reworking this circum-cratonic region, and if the Archean and Proterozoic lithosphere is responding differently to the reworking event.