Results of joint processing of data on nuclear and chemical explosions recorded on the long-range Quartz profile (Murmansk-Kyzyl)

The long-range seismic profile Quartz, measured by the GEON Center (Ministry of Geology of the USSR), crosses a few large geostructures: the East European platform, Timan-Pechora plate, Northern Urals, West Siberian plate (WSP), and Altai. Observations of nuclear and chemical explosions were conducted on the profile. Joint processing of records from sources of both types provided detailed structures of the crust and upper mantle. They have confirmed the known patterns in the structure of these shells of the Earth and revealed new ones. Mountain roots are observed beneath the Urals and Altai, and areas of a higher heat flow are matched by lower velocity zones in the upper mantle. Moreover, it is shown that the Timan-Pechora plate is characterized by a two-layer crust untypical of other young plates of central Eurasia and the upper mantle has the same velocities beneath the ancient East European platform and the young Altai orogen. It is also shown that the vast region including the Timan-Pechora plate, Urals, and WSP is bounded on both sides by deep faults in the upper mantle dipping toward the center of Western Siberia. A few nearly continuous reflectors traceable in the upper mantle are represented by thin-layered heterogeneous beds. The largest horizontal heterogeneity is observed in the upper 100-km layer, often underlain by a lower velocity zone. The asthenosphere, as a layer of lower seismic velocities at the depth of a possible solidus (200–250 km), has not been revealed. The latter is evidently a feature specific to inner parts of the Eurasian continent; in marginal regions, e.g., in Western Europe, the asthenospheric layer is identified almost ubiquitously.