Crustal Structure in the Eastern Part of the Alborz Mountains (Iran) from Converted P wave Phases

Afsari, N; Taghizadeh-Farahmand, F; Ghassemi, M.R

doi:10.22071/gsj.2015.41849

Crustal Structure in the Eastern Part of the Alborz Mountains (Iran) from Converted P wave Phases

Document Type : Original Research Paper

Authors

N Afsari ¹

F Taghizadeh-Farahmand ²

M.R Ghassemi ³

¹ Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Islamic Azad University, Nowshahr Branch, Mazandaran, Iran.

² Assistant Professor, Department of Physics, Islamic Azad University, Qom Branch, Qom, Iran.

³ Associate Professor, Research Institute for Earth Sciences, Geological Survey of Iran, Tehran, Iran.

10.22071/gsj.2015.41849

Abstract

The AlborzMountains are part of the Alpine-Himalayan orogenic belt, situated to the south of the Caspian Sea and north of the Central Iran. . The region is undergoing extensive crustal deformation and shortening between the north-central Iran and the rigid SouthCaspianBasin crust. In this study, we used the P-wave receiver function modeling to investigate the crustal structure beneath the eastern part of the AlborzMountains from data recorded between 2004-2010 in Sari and Semnan seismic networks of short-period seismographs, permanently deployed across the area. We observed clear conversions (Ps) from the Moho boundary, and we used them to define a model for the crust of the eastern Alborz. Our analysis indicates a thickening of the crust from ~51±2 km beneath the northern part of the eastern Alborz to ~62±2 km beneath the central part of the region, then a thinning of the crust to ~52±2 km towards south of the eastern Alborz Mountains.

Keywords

Alborz

Moho discontinuity

P-Wave Receiver Function

Forward modeling