Pre-drilling reflection survey of the Black Forest, SW Germany

Summary. The unified seismic exploration program, consisting of 345 km of deep reflection profiling, a 200 km refraction profile, an expanding spread profile and near-surface high resolution reflection meaasurements, revealed a strongly differentiated crust beneath the Black Forest. The highly reflective lower crust contains numerous horizontal and dipping reflectors at depths of 13-14 km down to the crust-mantle boundary (Moho). The Moho appears as a flat horizontal first order discontinuity at a relatively shallow level of 25–27 km above a transparent upper mantle. From modelling of synthetic near-vertical and wide-angle seismograms using the reflectivity method the lower crust is supposed to be composed of laminae with an average thickness of about 100 m and velocity differences of greater than 10% increasing from top to bottom. The upper crust is characterised by mostly dipping reflectors, associated with bivergent underthrusting and accretion tectonics of Variscan age and with extensional faults of Mesozoic age. A bright spot at 9.5 km depth is characterised by low velocity material suggesting a fluid trap. It appears on all of the three profiles in the centre of the intersection region. The upper crust seems to be decoupled from the lowest crust by a relatively transparent zone which is' also identified as a low-velocity zone. This low velocity channel is situated directly above the laminated lower crust. The laminae in the Rhinegraben area are displaced vertically to greater depths indicating an origin before Tertiary rift formation and a subsidence of the whole graben wedge.