Lateral and vertical variability in crustal velocity structure in a small area of the North Atlantic

Abstract

The detailed velocity structure of a 70 by 35 km area of 6–10 Ma old crust on the flank of the mid Atlantic Ridge at 24°N was studied using 358 explosive charges and several hundred 16.4-1 airgun shots fired into an array of eight ocean bottom hydrophones. Inversion of the first arrival refracted travel times shows that the crust comprises a normal oceanic section about 5 km thick with a steep velocity gradient in the upper crust increasing from about 3.5 km/sec at the seafloor overlying a typical oceanic layer 3 and a probably anisotropic mantle. Delay time function mapping using two datasets containing arrivals from layer 3 and from the mantle show that lateral variability is generally low over most of the survey area, with a small region of high delay times in the northwest corner caused by the presence of abnormal crust probably associated with a minor fracture zone. We find that the topography of the base of layer 2 is similar to that of the top, indicating that the normal faulting which occurs along the margins of the median valley extends down at least into layer 3. Our observations from mantle arrivals are consistent with a much flatter Moho which constrains possible models of crustal formation at the spreading centre.