Inproceedings,
A passive seismic array across the Dead Sea Transform
EOS Transactions, American Geophysical Union. Fall Meeting Supplement, 81, page T12C-11+. San Francisco, California, American Geophysical Union, (December 2000)
Abstract
Beginning in April 2000, a temporary network of currently 20 broadband
and 30 short-period seismic stations has been set up in Israel, Jordan
and Palestine across the Dead Sea Transform between the Dead Sea
and the Red Sea. The aperture of the network is 250 km NW-SE and
approximately 150 km SW-NE. In October 2000 an additional 10 broad-band
seismic stations are to be brought into operation completing the
installation. It is anticipated that the network be kept in operation
till April/May 2001. Data are continuously recorded at 50 Hz sample
frequency. The aims of the project are (1) to carry out a tomographic
study of the area, (2) to investigate crust and upper mantle discontinuities
with the receiver function method, (3) to investigate anisotropy
in the crust and upper mantle from shear wave splitting, and (4),
to study local seismicity in the Arava Valley between the Dead and
Red Sea. Data analysed for one week in May 2000 illustrate the good
data quality of recordings. A local M\_L = 2.2 earthquake in the
Arava Valley which escaped detection by the permanent network of
seismograph stations was recorded by 15 stations of the temporary
network in the initial phase of installation allowing us to derive
a precise hypocentral location and focal mechanism for this event.
First preliminary receiver function analyses of a few stations reveal
a crustal thickness of about 30 km in the area of the transform and
possibly an upper mantle low-velocity layer.
