Imaging the crustal structure of the Central Pyrenees using Seismic Interferometry

The Pyrenees constitute a natural laboratory where hundreds of geological and geophysical data have been acquired during the last decades. It represents a roughly E-W oriented doubly vergent orogen formed during the Alpine Orogeny. Deep seismic reflection data obtained during the 80s revealed its crustal architecture that resulted from the subduction of the Iberian plate under the European lithosphere at its central part.

In this work we applied seismic interferometry to the same passive dataset through two different techniques aiming to construct two independent images of the Central Pyrenean lithosphere, to enhance the current knowledge of the area. The main objectives are to compare them and correlate the obtained results with previous data. Data were acquired within the IMAGYN project along a NE-SW 70 km-long profile extending from the Southern Pyrenees (Pedraforca and Cadí Units, northern Iberia) to the northern part of the Axial Zone, close to Ax-les-Thermes (France). Data came from three to five months of continuous recording from an almost linear array of 43 seismic stations (being 17 and 26 broadband and short-period stations, respectively). The two applied techniques are (1) the global-phase seismic interferometry (GloPSI), using continuous recordings of teleseismic (30⁰ < epicentral distance < 95⁰) and global earthquakes (> 120⁰ epicentral distance), and (2) the use of continuous ambient seismic noise recordings through autocorrelation. Despite both methods rely on different energy sources, they are complementary and use static receivers. In the first method (GloPSI), we extracted global phases (PKP, PKiKP and PKIKP) and their reverberations within the lithosphere. The selected phases were autocorrelated and stacked to construct a high-resolution pseudo zero-offset reflection image. The second approach provided an approximation to the zero-offset reflection response of a single station. Results reveal features that can be correlated in both reflection images. The crust-mantle boundary is mapped as a relative flat interface at approximately 35-40 km depth. Crustal interfaces detected at 15 and 25 km depth can be related to the Conrad discontinuity and other compositional changes within the crust.

(This work is part of the project “High-resolution imaging of the crustal-scale structure of the Central Pyrenees and role of Variscan inheritance on its geodynamic evolution” (IMAGYN), PID2020-114273GB-C22 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033)