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Crustal structure of northern Egypt from joint inversion of receiver functions and surface wave dispersion velocities

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Abstract

In this study, we used a combined inversion of body wave receiver functions and surface wave dispersion measurements to provide constraints on the crustal structure of northern Egypt. The two techniques are complementary to each other: receiver functions (RFs) are sensitive to shear-wave velocity contrasts, while surface wave dispersion (SWD) measurements are sensitive to finite variations of shear-wave velocity with depth. A database of 122 teleseismic events digitally recorded by the Egyptian National Seismological Network (ENSN) stations has been used as well. To enhance the resulting RFs at each ENSN station, the H-k stacking method was applied. A joint inversion process between the resulting receiver functions and the surface wave dispersion curves was applied as well. We have produced three averaged velocity structure models for distinct geographic and tectonic provinces namely Sinai, eastern desert, and western desert from east to the west respectively. These models will deeply help in estimation the epicenter distance of earthquake, focal mechanism solutions, and earthquake hazard analysis in northern Egypt. An obvious image of the subsurface structure has been determined which shows that generally the crustal structure of northern Egypt consists of three layers covered with a sequence of sediments that differs in thickness from across the region except in the Sharm area where the sedimentary cover is absent. The obtained results indicate that crustal thickness differs from east to west and reaches its maximum value of about 36 km at Siwa station (SWA) in the western desert and its minimum value of about 28 km at Sharm station (SHR) of the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula. The Vp/Vs ratio varies between 1.71 and 2.07 in northern Egypt. Generally, the high values (1.93) of (Vp/Vs) at SWA station may reflect the well-known rich aquifer with fully saturated sediments of the Swia Oasis in the Western Desert. Moreover, the highest value (2.07) of (Vp/Vs) at BNS station may be attributed to the widespread recently discovered hydrocarbon fields at the Beni-Suef Basin along the Eastern Desert. Finally, an integrated geophysical and hydrological study of the dimensions and physical properties of the aquifer and hydrocarbon fields at SWA and BNS stations to confirm if they are sufficient to produce the elevated Vp/Vs ratios or not become essential and highly recommended.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the Editor-in-Chief Prof. Mariano Garcia-Fernandez and the anonymous reviewers for their critical reviews which have greatly helped to improve the old version of this paper. Great thanks to Prof. G. Karner and J. Cochran, at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Colombia University, USA, to read review the present version of the manuscript. This work has been carried out at Earthquake Division of the National Research Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics (NRIAG), the authors are also grateful to the all staff members of the ENSN.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Seismology Department, National Research Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics, Helwan, Cairo, Egypt

    Ahmed Badawy, Mona Hegazi & Hanan Gaber

  2. Geophysics Department, Faculty of Science, Mansura University, Mansura, Egypt

    Ibrahim Korrat

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  1. Ahmed Badawy
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  2. Mona Hegazi
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  3. Hanan Gaber
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  4. Ibrahim Korrat
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Correspondence to Ahmed Badawy.

Appendix

Appendix

Table 5 The hypo-central parameters of teleseismic earthquakes recorded by ENSN’s stations and analyzed in this research
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Badawy, A., Hegazi, M., Gaber, H. et al. Crustal structure of northern Egypt from joint inversion of receiver functions and surface wave dispersion velocities. J Seismol 22, 697–719 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10950-018-9729-x

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