Upper Mantle Structure in Southern Saskatchewan and Western Manitoba from Project Edzoe

Abstract

A line of eight recording sites in southern Saskatchewan and Manitoba, with ranges from 793 to 1284 km, recorded a series of chemical explosions in Greenbush Lake, British Columbia, as part of Project Edzoe in 1969.It is found that travel-times fall into two branches. The first branch is interpreted as representing the effect of a linear increase of P wave velocity, increasing from 8.10 km/s at the top of the mantle, with a gradient of 0.0017 s−1. The second branch indicates a rapid increase of gradient occurring somewhere between depths of 120 km and 150 km. Amplitude studies suggest, in the absence of complete triplication, a zone of low velocity gradient beneath the rapid increase. The presence or absence of a low velocity zone was not indicated in the data.Previous long-range refraction surveys indicate that a similar gradient in velocity also occurs beneath the Superior province of the Canadian shield, and that P-wave velocities are lowest at its center, reaching higher values at its edges.