Single‐chamber silicic magma system inferred from shear wave discontinuities of the crust and uppermost mantle, Coso geothermal area, California

Abstract

Analysis of seismograms from teleseismic rays traversing the Coso geothermal area near Ridgecrest, California, suggests the geothermal system lies over a single shallow magma reservoir (∼5 km below the surface) that also plays a crucial role in the local change in deformation style from areas to the north and west. The character of the magma reservoir and the absence of a lower crustal magma reservoir is inferred from three crustal P‐to‐S conversions observed using receiver function analysis: (1) A high‐amplitude, shallow, negative arrival, Ps‐P time of 0.7–0.9 s (3–5 km below sea level (bsl)), (2) a moderate amplitude, positive conversion, Ps‐P time of 2.1–2.5 s (14–17 km bsl), and (3) the Moho conversion, Ps‐P time of 4.0–4.2 s (30–32 km bsl). Observations of Moho converted arrivals indicate that the interface is mostly flat and uncomplicated throughout the study area, while the midcrustal conversion is laterally variable in amplitude and depth. The absence of the large negative amplitude conversion on waveforms recorded at stations outside the geothermal area strongly suggests that the feature lies only underneath the modern geothermal area. In addition, rays sampling the shallow converter also contain later arrivals with retrograde moveout consistent with an origin as reverberations above the conversion. Receiver functions calculated from synthetic data using a single isotropic layer over a half‐space indicates that the shear velocity decreases by 30% across the interface (VS1 = 2.6 km/s; VS2 = 1.8 km/s; layer one thickness 4.9 km), further supporting the presence of shallow magma.