直流电测深法与中心回线瞬变电磁法联合反演

分析了直流电测深法(VES)与中心回线瞬变电磁法(TEM)对地层的响应特征,结果显示:TEM对低阻层反应灵敏,而VES对高阻层具有较高的分辨能力。基于TEM与VES对地层响应特征互补的特点,尝试将TEM与VES数据进行联合反演,模型试算结果表明,联合反演的效果明显比单一方法反演的效果好。     

浅谈电法在福建安溪铅山矿区的找矿效果

安溪县铅山铅锌矿区地质普查阶段开展了物探工作（激电中梯剖面、激电测深）,发现了激电异常,结合矿区成矿地质条件,推断异常是由隐伏铅锌矿（化）引起,提出了进一步工作的建议,经钻探验证得以证实。该区激电异常是一个深部找矿的有效标志,电法工作为该普查区顺利转入详查阶段起了一定作用。     

中国边缘海域及其邻区的岩石层结构与构造分析

利用中国边缘海域近年的地震层析成像结果,根据速度异常和各向异性分析东海、黄海和南海北部的岩石层结构和构造,讨论中朝块体和扬子块体在黄海内部的拼合边界(黄海东部断裂带)、东海陆架盆地上地幔异常与岩石层形成演化、南海北部地壳底部高速层的成因及地幔活动等问题。分析表明,黄海东部与朝鲜半岛之间存在一个深部构造界限(大致对应于黄海东部断裂带),分界两侧Pn波速度各向异性存在明显差异,反映不同构造应力和断裂剪切运动作用下的岩石层地幔变形特征。东海陆架下方的低速异常揭示了张裂盆地形成时期的地幔活动痕迹,表明中、新生代期间发生过地幔上涌并造成岩石层减薄,菲律宾海板块向西俯冲引发的地幔活动对东海陆架岩石层的形成、演化产生明显的影响。南海北部岩石层厚度较大并且温度相对偏低,地幔异常仅限于局部地区,估计南海北部大陆边缘的地壳底部高速层形成于张裂发生之前,或者是地壳形成时期壳幔分异时的产物。南海中央海盆的扩张不仅导致地壳拉张,软流层物质上涌,而且也造成岩石层地幔减薄甚至缺失。     

New basis for the constitutive modelling of aggregated soils

Natural and compacted soils are usually characterized by aggregation of particles. The mechanical behaviour of these materials depends on soil structure. The oedometric compression tests performed on aggregated samples presented here showed that these materials exhibit a yield limit depending not only on stress history and stress state but also on soil structure. Evidence is provided using the neutron tomography technique. These results revealed that soil structure modification occurs together with plastic deformations. The experimental results are used to propose a new state parameter to quantify the soil structure. Based on pore-scale experimental observations, an evolution law for this parameter is proposed as a function of associated plastic strains. Considering both soil fabric and inter-particle bonding effects, a new yield limit depending on stress state, stress history and soil structure is introduced for the aggregated soils. Accordingly, a new constitutive framework consistent with strain hardening plasticity is proposed to consider soil structure effects in the modelling of aggregated soils.     

(ϖμ/ϖT) P of the lower mantle

We estimate (/T) _P of the lower mantle at seismic frequencies using two distinct approaches by combining ambient laboratory measurements on lower mantle minerals with seismic data. In the first approach, an upper bound is estimated for |(/T) _P | by comparing the shear modulus () profile of PREM with laboratory room-temperature data of extrapolated to high pressures. The second approach employs a seismic tomography constraint ( lnV _S / lnV _P ) _P =1.8–2, which directly relates (/T) _P with (K _S /T) _P . An average (K _S /T) _P can be obtained by comparing the well-established room-temperature compression data for lower mantle minerals with theK _S profile of PREM along several possible adiabats. Both (K _S /T) and (/T) depend on silicon content [or (Mg+Fe)/Sil of the model. For various compositions, the two approaches predict rather distinct (/T) _P vs. (K _S /T) _P curves, which intersect at a composition similar to pyrolite with (/T) _P =–0.02 to –0.035 and (K _S /T) _P =–0.015 to –0.020 GPa/K. The pure perovskite model, on the other hand, yields grossly inconsistent results using the two approaches. We conclude that both vertical and lateral variations in seismic velocities are consistent with variation due to pressure, temperature, and phase transformations of a uniform composition. Additional physical properties of a pyrolite lower mantle are further predicted. Lateral temperature variations are predicted to be about 100–250 K, and the ratio of ( lnp/ lnV _S ) _P around 0.13 and 0.26. All of these parameters increase slightly with depth if the ratio of ( lnV _S / lnV _P ) _P remains constant throughout the lower mantle. These predicted values are in excellent agreement with geodynamic analyses, in which the ratios ( ln / lnV _S ) _P and ( / lnV _S ) _P are free parameters arbitrarily adjusted to fit the tomography and geoid data.     

Mantle plumes from top to bottom

Hotspots include midplate features like Hawaii and on-axis features like Iceland. Mantle plumes are a well-posed hypothesis for their formation. Starting plume heads provide an explanation of brief episodes of flood basalts, mafic intrusions, and radial dike swarms. Yet the essence of the hypothesis hides deep in the mantle. Tests independent of surface geology and geochemistry to date have been at best tantalizing. It is productive to bare the current ignorance, rather than to dump the plume hypothesis. One finds potentially fruitful lines of inquiry using simple dynamics and observations. Ancient lithospheric xenoliths may reveal heating by plumes and subsequent thermal equilibration in the past. The effect at the base of the chemical layer is modest 50-100 K for transient heating by plume heads. Thinning of nonbuoyant platform lithosphere is readily observed but not directly attributable to plumes. The plume history in Antarctica is ill constrained because of poor geological exposure. This locality provides a worst case on what is known about surface evidence of hotspots. Direct detection of plume tail conduits in the mid-mantle is now at the edge of seismic resolution. Seismology does not provide adequate resolution of the deep mantle. We do not know the extent of a chemically dense dregs layer or whether superplume regions are cooler or hotter than an adiabat in equilibrium with the asthenosphere. Overall, mid-mantle seismology is most likely to give definitive results as plume conduits are the guts of the dynamic hypothesis. Finding them would bring unresolved deep and shallow processes into place.     

Crustal structure of the Eastern Alps along the TRANSALP profile from wide-angle seismic tomography

The objective of the TRANSALP project is an investigation of the Eastern Alps with regard to their deep structure and dynamic evolution. The core of the project is a 340-km-long seismic profile at 12°E between Munich and Venice. This paper deals with the P-wave velocity distribution as derived from active source travel time tomography. Our database consists of Vibroseis and explosion seismic travel times recorded at up to 100 seismological stations distributed in a 30-km-wide corridor along the profile. In order to derive a velocity and reflector model, we simultaneously inverted refractions and reflections using a derivative of a damped least squares approach for local earthquake tomography. 8000 travel time picks from dense Vibroseis recordings provide the basis for high resolution in the upper crust. Explosion seismic wide-angle reflection travel times constrain both deeper crustal velocities and structure of the crust–mantle boundary with low resolution. In the resulting model, the Adriatic crust shows significantly higher P-wave velocities than the European crust. The European Moho is dipping south at an angle of 7°. The Adriatic Moho dips north with a gentle inclination at shallower depths. This geometry suggests S-directed subduction. Azimuthal variations of the first-break velocities as well as observations of shear wave splitting reveal strong anisotropy in the Tauern Window. We explain this finding by foliations and laminations generated by lateral extrusion. Based on the P-wave model we also localized almost 100 local earthquakes recorded during the 2-month acquisition campaign in 1999. Seismicity patterns in the North seem related to the Inn valley shear zone, and to thrusting of Austroalpine units over European basement. The alignment of deep seismicity in the Trento-Vicenza region with the top of the Adriatic lower crust corroborates the suggestion of a deep thrust fault in the Southern Alps.     

3-D seismic structure of the source area of the 1993 Latur, India, earthquake and its implications for rupture nucleations

The Latur earthquake (M_w 6.1) of 29 September 1993 is a rare stable continental region (SCR) earthquake that occurred on a previously unknown blind fault. In this study, we determined detailed three-dimensional (3-D) P- and S-wave velocity (V_p, V_s) and Poisson's ratio (σ) structures by inverting the first P- and S-wave high-quality arrival time data from 142 aftershocks that were recorded by a network of temporary seismic stations. The source zone of the Latur earthquake shows strong lateral heterogeneities in V_p, V_s and σ structures, extending in a volume of about 90 × 90 × 15 km³. The mainshock occurred within, but near the boundary, of a low-V_p, high-V_s and low-σ zone. This suggests that the structural asperities at the mainshock hypocenter are associated with a partially fluid-saturated fractured rock in a previously unknown source zone with intersecting fault surfaces. This might have triggered the 1993 Latur mainshock and its aftershock sequence. Our results are in good agreement with other geophysical studies that suggest high conductivity and high concentration of radiogenic helium gas beneath the source zone of the Latur earthquake. Our study provides an additional evidence for the presence of fluid related anomaly at the hidden source zone of the Latur earthquake in the SCR and helps us understand the genesis of damaging earthquakes in the SCR of the world.     

The Tornquist Zone, a north east inclining lithospheric transition at the south western margin of the Baltic Shield: Revealed through a nonlinear teleseismic tomographic inversion

From July 1996 to August 1997 the TOR project operated 130 seismographs in North Germany, Denmark and South Sweden, with the aim of collecting signals from local, regional and teleseismic earthquakes. This data set is particularly interesting since the seismic antenna crosses the most significant geological boundary in Europe, the Tornquist Zone, which in the northern part is the border between the Baltic Shield and the younger European lithosphere. Previous studies have shown significant physical changes in the crust and upper mantle across this transition zone, including two independent teleseismic tomographic studies of the TOR data set. But these two studies disagree on the orientation of the slope of the transition. Both studies used an iterative linearized inversion method. We will in this work Preprint submitted to Elsevier Science 27 July 2005 present an inversion based on Bayesian statistics, where the solution space is examined in order to study a very large number of tomographic solutions and to examine the solution uniqueness and uncertainty. The method is applied to measurements of 3345 relative teleseismic P-phase travel times from 48 teleseismic earthquakes with good azimuthal coverage with respect to the great circle arc of the TOR array. We find the lithospheric transition to be a north east inclination of around 30° to 45° off vertical.