The crustal structure beneath the northwest fjords, Iceland, from receiver functions and surface waves

Abstract

Five broad-band seismic stations were operated in the northwest fjords area of Iceland from 1996 to 1998 as part of the Iceland Hotspot project. The structures of the upper 35 km or so beneath these stations were determined by the modelling and joint inversion of receiver functions and regional surface wave phase velocities. More than 40 teleseismic events and a few regional events containing high-quality surface wave trains were used. Although the middle period passband of the seismograms is corrupted by oceanic microseismic noise, which hinders the interpretation of structural details, the inversions reveal the overall features. Many profiles obtained exhibit large velocity gradients in the upper 5 km or so, smaller zero gradients below this, and, at ~23 km depth, a zone 2-4 km thick with higher velocity gradients. The two shallower intervals are fairly consistent with the 'upper' and 'lower' crust, defined by Flovenz (1980). The deep zone of enhanced velocity gradient seems to correspond to the sharp reflector first reported by Bjarnason et al. (1993) and identified by them as the 'Moho'. However, this type of structure is not ubiquitous beneath the northwest fjords area. The distinctiveness of the three intervals is variable, and in some cases a structure with velocity gradient increasing smoothly with depth is observed. We term these two end-members structures of the first and second types respectively. Structures of the second type correlate with older areas. Substantial variation in fundamental structure is to be expected in Iceland because of the great geological heterogeneity there.