Broadband seismological analyses in the Eastern Mediterranean: implications for late-stage subduction, plateau uplift and the development of the North Anatolian Fault
- 1Imperial College, London, UK
- 2University of Leicester, UK
The eastern Mediterranean hosts extensional, strike-slip, and collision tectonics above a set of fragmenting subducting slabs. Widespread Miocene-Recent volcanism and ~2km uplift has been attributed to mantle processes such as delamination, dripping and/or slab tearing/break-off. We investigate this region using broadband seismology: mantle tomographic imaging (Kounoudis et al., 2020), SKS splitting analysis of seismic anisotropy (Merry et al., 2021), and receiver function study of crustal structure (Ogden & Bastow, 2021). Anisotropy and crustal structure are more spatially variable than recognised previously, but variations correspond well with tomographically-imaged mantle structure. Moho depth correlates poorly with elevation, suggesting crustal thickness variations alone do not explain Anatolian topography: a mantle contribution, particularly in central and eastern Anatolia, is needed too. Lithospheric anisotropy beneath the North Anatolian Fault reveals a mantle shear zone deforming coherently with the surface, while backazimuthal variations in splitting parameters indicate fault-related lithospheric deformation. Anisotropic fast directions are either fault-parallel or intermediate between the principle extensional strain rate axis and fault strike, diagnostic of a relatively low-strained transcurrent mantle shear zone.
How to cite: Bastow, I., Ogden, C., Merry, T., Kounoudis, R., Bell, R., Goes, S., and Zhou, P.: Broadband seismological analyses in the Eastern Mediterranean: implications for late-stage subduction, plateau uplift and the development of the North Anatolian Fault, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 24–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-10222, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-10222, 2023.