Three-dimensional mapping of Seismic reflections from the crust and upper mantle, northwest of Scotland

Abstract

A survey area 190 km by 110 km to the northwest of Scotland on the UK continental shelf, has been the site of intense exploration using the deep Seismic reflection technique. A closely spaced grid of deep reflection data totalling 1600 line km has been acquired by the BIRPS group between 1981 and 1987. The majority of the data were recorded to 15 s two-way travel time (50 km depth); profiles with recording times up to 60 s (230 km depth) were also acquired. The survey includes a two-ship synthetic aperture profile, the SLAVE line, which synthesises a 0–16 km offset CDP profile. The main features revealed and consistently imaged across the survey area by this combined dataset are: an upper crust containing half-graben style basins, bounded to the west by planar faults; a reflective lower crust; and dipping and sub-horizontal, high-amplitude reflections within the mantle. Three-dimensional mapping of the dipping reflectors shows a complex package of reflections which updomes into the lower crust in the central area of the survey, disrupting the Moho and continuing into the uppermost mantle, where it thins to a couplet of reflections. In the north and south of the survey area, this structure is observed only in the mantle, to a depth of 80 km. This dataset is unique in deep Seismic reflection profiling, in terms of the quality of the image returned, the great depth to which reflections are imaged and the intensity of surveying of the lower crust and upper mantle. The continuity and strength of the reflectors seen on these records show that even at the great depths at which these structures exist the Seismic reflection technique is able to image them as high-amplitude, coherent and highly continuous reflections. The reflections are interpreted as shear zones or faults within the lower crust and upper mantle. This indicates that in this part of the world at least, both the lower crust and upper mantle are able to sustain discrete zones of deformation.