Deep structure of the transition zone from the Baltic shield to the Barents Sea basin based on seismic data

Results of the analysis and interpretation of the records of 17 ocean bottom seismometers designed at the Shirshov Institute of Oceanology, Russian Academy of Sciences (a three-component geophone and a hydrophone), installed with an interval of 10–20 km along a profile in the transition zone from the Baltic shield to the Barents Sea basin are presented. The studies were carried out in 1995 from R/V Professor Kurentsov. An air gun with a chamber volume of 80 1 was used as the source of seismic waves with a shooting interval of 250 m. The longest range of records of deep refracted and wide-angle reflected waves (up to 300 km) was reached with the hydrophones. Two-dimensional seismic modeling allowed us to refine the earlier versions of the seismic cross section of the earth’s crust and uppermost mantle in the study region. New data confirmed that, in the central area of the Barents Sea, the “granitic-metamorphic” layer of the crust with a seismic velocity of 6.2 km/s typical of the Baltic Shield is absent. In this region, a thin consolidated crust with a seismic velocity of 6.8 km/s is covered with a thick (more than 25 km) sedimentary layer. In this layer, a local low-velocity zone probably exists, which causes a strong attenuation of the “crustal” waves.