Joint interpretation of earthquake travel-time residuals and seismic measurements along the ‘Blue Norma’ profile in northern Scandinavia

The deep seismic sounding project Blue Norma was carried out in the summer of 1977 in northern Scandinavia in order to investigate the deep structure of the Norwegian continental margin and the Caledonian mountain chain. During the measurements, by chance the core phase PKIKP of an earthquake at the New Hebrides was recorded with 30 seismic field stations along a profile through the central Caledonides. The results of the refraction seismic data, as obtained by a ray-tracing method, are presented and compared to the interpretation of the relative residuals of the PKIKP travel times. From both data sets a continentward down-dipping crust-mantle boundary is evaluated. From the interpretation of the refraction seismic measurements a crustal thickness of 32 km below the coastline and 42 km below the central mountain chain is obtained. The increase of the crustal thickness derived by the inversion of the travel-time residuals along this line amounts only to 6 km. This considerable discrepancy can only be explained by an eastward increasing seismic velocity in the mantle.