Isostatic Moho undulations and estimated elastic thicknesses of the lithosphere in the central Anatolian plateau, Turkey

Abstract

In this paper, the flexural isostatic deformation of the crustal structure and an average effective elastic thickness (EET) of the lithosphere in the central Anatolian plateau has been estimated. We have used the Vening-Meinesz model to calculate the isostatic Moho depths or crustal thicknesses due to topographic loads. The maximum Moho deepening is under the Alpine Orogenic belt throughout the southern part of Anatolian plate, whereas the Moho depths are relatively shallow in the northwestern and central parts of the region. An average EET of central Anatolia’s lithosphere is calculated by multispectral coherence between EGM08 Bouguer anomalies and ETOPO1 topographic data sets. Application of spectral coherence estimation provides an average EET value of 21.3 km and hence points out that the lithosphere is deflected. In addition, density contrasts of the horizontally and vertically extended in the uppermost crust were estimated using compact gravity inversion. We interpret the uppermost crustal blocks in terms of density contrasts may contribute to the total crustal load in addition to topographic loading.