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Southern Segment of the European Geotraverse — a wide-angle seismic refraction experiment in the Sardinia Channel

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Abstract

The Sardinia Channel dataset was collected as part of the European Geotraverse (EGT)—a 4000 km seismic refraction line running from Northern Norway to the Sahara, designed to investigate the structure of the lithosphere beneath Europe. Wideangle seismic data recorded by ocean bottom seismometers deployed in the Sardinia Channel as part of the Southern Segment of the EGT, together with gravity data, were used to constrain the final crustal model. In the centre of the Channel the crust is identified as thinned continental in nature, with a crystalline thickness of 10 km overlain by 4 km of sediments and 2.5 km of water in the most extended region. High velocities in the lower crust in the central region are thought to represent an area of underplating or intrusion by igneous material caused by extension related to the opening of the Tyrrhenian Sea. The crust overlies an anomalously low velocity upper mantle.

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  1. C. Peirce

    Present address: Department of Geological Sciences, University of Durham, Science Laboratories, South Road, DH1 3LE, Durham, UK

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  1. Bullard Laboratories, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge, Madingley Rise, Madingley Road, CB3 0EZ, Cambridge, UK

    C. Peirce & P. J. Barton

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Peirce, C., Barton, P.J. Southern Segment of the European Geotraverse — a wide-angle seismic refraction experiment in the Sardinia Channel. Mar Geophys Res 14, 227–248 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01270631

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