Upper Mantle Seismic Velocity Estimates around the St. Paul Transform System, Equatorial Atlantic

Type Poster
Date 2020-04-07
Language English
Other localization https://www.agu.org/fall-meeting
Author(s) Sampaio De Melo Guilherme WeberORCID1, Parnell-Turner RossORCID2, Dziak Robert P.3, Smith DeborahORCID4, Do Nascimento AdersonORCID1, Maia MarciaORCID5
Affiliation(s) 1 : Department of Geophysics, Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, RN, Brazil
2 : Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UCSD, La Jolla, USA
3 : NOAA, Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, Newport, OR, USA
4 : National Science Foundation, Alexandria, VA, USA
5 : Institut Universitaire Européen de La Mer, UBO, Plouzané, France
Meeting AGU Fall Meeting. 9 - 13 December 2019, San Francisco
DOI 10.1002/essoar.10502670.1
Abstract

The equatorial region of the slow-spreading Mid-Atlantic Ridge is characterized by several major transform faults, which are some of the longest on Earth. Among them, the St. Paul Transform system (SPTS) is a complex group of four transform faults, bounding three short intra-transform segments with total offset of 630 km. The northernmost transform is the 200 km-long, 30 km-wide Atoba Ridge, which represents a major topographic feature that rises above sea level at the St. Peter and St. Paul islands (SPSPA). This push-up ridge formed from transpressive stresses along several transform fault step-overs and restraining bends, uplifting mantle rocks at a rate of ~1.5 mm/yr. Moderate-sized earthquakes (>4.0 Mw) have been located by global teleseismic networks along the SPTS and near region. These earthquakes are recorded at large epicentral distances, and include raypaths that travel within the upper mantle (Pn and Sn phases). Pn velocity estimates can help to understand the dynamics of upper mantle structure around of the transform faults. Here, waveforms recorded over ~6 months of 2012 by two autonomous hydrophones moored north and south of SPTS (EA-2 and EA-8), and a seismographic station installed on SPSPA island (ASPSP station) are examined. These data allow us to make Pn velocity estimates from 32 earthquakes that occurred in the SPTS region from 1.5º S to 4.5º N. Pn wave velocities are typically thought to be 8.0–8.2 km/s in upper mantle, however we identify Pn velocities ranging from 7.5 to 9.0 km/s. The slower velocities (7.5-8.0 km/s) are from ray paths oriented parallel to the ridge axis and could be explained by elevated mantle potential temperature and the presence of melt. Ray paths passing through the transform fault system have Pn velocities from 8.1 to 9.0 km/s, indicating that upper mantle conditions are strongly affected by the presence of the crustal fault system. We will also compare our velocity estimates to global shear-wave tomographic models of the upper mantle. Hence it is our goal to show that the availability of autonomous hydrophones and a single island seismic station can be used to make rare estimates of Pn velocities, as well as provide insights into upper mantle structure, in this remote part of the Atlantic Ocean.

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Sampaio De Melo Guilherme Weber, Parnell-Turner Ross, Dziak Robert P., Smith Deborah, Do Nascimento Aderson, Maia Marcia (2020). Upper Mantle Seismic Velocity Estimates around the St. Paul Transform System, Equatorial Atlantic. AGU Fall Meeting. 9 - 13 December 2019, San Francisco. https://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00848/95980/