Seismic Investigation of the Northern Tibetan Margin

Frederik Tilmann
2011
Seismic Investigation of the Northern Tibetan Margin
This is a Full Scientific Report resulting from NERC Geophysical Equipment Facility Loan 769, principal investigator Dr Frederik Tilmann.

Abstract

This report describes the dataset and some results from a deployment of both a linear array and an areal array in Northern Tibet. The experiment was a collaboration of German, US, British and Chinese universities and institutions, with stations provided by IRIS-PASSCAL, SeisUK and GIPP (GFZ-Pool). The northern edge of Tibet, where the Kunlun mountains drop towards the Qaidam basin is marked by a steep Moho step, shallowing from 70 km to 50 km Moho depth. The upper mantle below northern Tibet is characterised by an unusual doubled negative polarity discontinuity at 100 and 160 km depth (300 km). Lower velocities are found beneath the Kunlun mountains and Songpan-Ganzi terrane to large depths (300 km). Below the northern Tibetan plateau (Qiangtang terrane) the lower velocities imaged in previous studies are shown to only be present west of 94E. The data from the British stations of this network are archived at SeisUK and the IRIS-DMC with FDSN network code XO (valid for years 2007-08).

Full Report

PDF Seismic Investigation of the Northern Tibetan Margin (1.2 Mb)
Cite as:
Tilmann, F., "Seismic Investigation of the Northern Tibetan Margin", NERC Geophysical Equipment Facility, Scientific Report 769, 2011

Selected external publications resulting from this GEF loan

  1. Karplus, M.S., Klemperer, S.L., Zhao, W., Kind, R., Wu, Z., Mechie, J., Shi, D., Brown, L.D., Chen, C., Su, H., Xue, G., Sandvol, E., Ni, J., Tilmann, F.J. and Chen, Y.J., 2019, Receiver-function imaging of the lithosphere at the Kunlun-Qaidam boundary, Northeast Tibet, Tectonophysics, 759, p30-43, doi: 10.1016/j.tecto.2019.03.015
  2. Yang, Y., Zheng, Y., Chen, J., Zhou, S., Celyan, S., Sandvol, E., Tilmann, F., Priestley, K., Hearn, T.M., Ni, J.F., Brown, L.D. and Ritzwoller, M.H., 2010, Rayleigh wave phase velocity maps of Tibet and the surrounding regions from ambient seismic noise tomography, Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, 11, Q08010, doi: 10.1029/2010GC003119
  3. Acton, C.E., Priestley, K., Mitra, S. and Gaur, V.K. , 2011, Crustal structure of the Darjeeling-Sikkim Himalaya and southern Tibet, Geophysical Journal International, 184(2), pp829-852, doi: 10.1111/ j.1365-246X.2010.04868.x
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