Study of crust-mantle transitional zone along the northeast margin of Qinghai-Xizang plateau

Introduction At the juncture of Qinghai-Xizang, Ordos and Alxa blocks lies the Qinghai-Xizang plateau, an area with complicated topographic and morphologic features, strong tectonic activities and frequent earthquakes (many large-magnitude earthquakes have taken place), has become a focal area for geoscience study. Many geophysical and geological surveys have been carried out in and around the area, such as deep seismic sounding (DSS), gravimetry, magnetotelluric sounding, magnetic anomaly …

Study of crust-mantle transitional zone along the northeast margin of Qinghai-Xizang plateau

This study deals with complexity, frequency spectrum and velocity model of the crust-mantle transitional zone in different tectonic units along the northeast margin of Qinghai-Xizang plateau, based on PmP waveform data from two deep seismic sounding profiles passing through the area. It reveals that Moho has stable tectonic features in Ordos and Lingzhong basins, where crust and mantle are coupled as first-order discontinuity. Moho shows obvious signs of activity in Haiyuan seismic region and in the contact zone between Bayanhar block and Qaidam block. Crust and mantle in these two areas are coupled as complicated crust-mantle transitional zone consisting of multiple laminae with alternate high and low velocities, totaling 20 km in thickness. The difference between Moho of different tectonic units reflects heterogeneity of the coupled crust-mantle zone; the difference between fine structures of Haiyuan seismic region and Maqin fault zone reflects different deep material composition of the two continent-continent collision zones and the interaction between blocks.