Shear Wave Splitting Beneath Eastern North American Continent: Evidence for a Multilayered and Laterally Variable Anisotropic Structure

Abstract

AbstractEastern North America records a tectonic history of over 3 Ga in duration. Much of this record is preserved within the lithosphere and may be unraveled by detailed studies of its interior structure. Past episodes of tectonic activity likely left their imprints in the form of anisotropy‐forming rock fabric presently preserved in the lithosphere of the continent. We perform shear wave splitting measurements using observations of core‐refracted waves collected from a ~1,300‐km‐long array extending from James Bay in Quebec to the Fundy basin in Maine, with lateral spacing of 10–100 km between instruments. Close spacing of instruments helps us associate anisotropic properties with geological boundaries. We find that the fast polarizations concentrate between N60°E and N90°E with an average of N80°E and change systematically with backazimuth. In addition, we observe a lateral increase in delay time from 0.56 ±0.25 s at the NW end of the array to 0.90 ± 0.41 s at the SE end. The location of lateral change in delay time does not match geological boundaries on the surface but seems to match the geophysical boundary at depth of 160 km. We interpret this boundary in splitting values to be the edge of cratonic lithosphere at depth. Our observations suggest that the anisotropic structure beneath our study area is complex and possibly both multilayered and laterally variable.