The Kenya rift axial gravity high: a re-interpretation

Abstract

Since KRISP 85 did not provide overwhelming evidence for the massive intrusion that was originally suggested to explain the axial gravity high yet did provide a velocity section for the upper crust along the axis of the Kenya Rift, it is appropriate to use this section to control a re-interpretation of the gravity anomalies. A 2 1 2 D inversion procedure has been used to model a number of isostatic anomaly profiles between Lake Baringo and Suswa. There are too many unknowns and gravity station coverage is too sparse for the results to be unique. Nevertheless, certain conclusions can be drawn. One of those is that some relatively dense material exists within the basement all along the Rift axis, since the axial isostatic anomalies are positive even though they occur where there are several thousand metres of Cenozoic volcanics of relatively low density (inferred from their seismic velocity of 3.7–5.1 km/s). The dense material is envisaged as a zone of dyke injection and assigned a density of 2.75–2.76 g/cm 3 (corresponding to its 6.05 km/s velocity) compared to a normal basement density of 2.70 g/cm 3. It is assumed to extend down to 22 km—the top of the 7.1 km/s layer. The KRISP 85 line passed just east of Menengai, where the basement velocity increases to about 6.6 km/s over a distance of about 20 km. On an east-west gravity profile through Menengai there is a gravity high corresponding to this velocity increase which has been modelled as a basic intrusion (density 2.93 g/cm 3) underlying the caldera.