Investigation of the Crustal Structure in the Middle East from Body-Wave Analysis (POSTPRINT). Annual Report 2

Abstract : This study encompasses crustal studies obtained with seismic waveform data from stations throughout the Middle East. This effort generates an unprecedented dataset for this region consisting of 173 seismic stations, including 53 high-quality broadband stations and over 58,000 local and regional events. The data offer maximum coverage throughout the region to conduct double-difference tomography generating high-resolution ( degree) 3D P- and S-wave velocity models of the crust. A joint-inversion approach that solves simultaneously for hypocenter locations and velocity estimates is adopted. The high-resolution velocity models will cover much of the Middle East and thus help to better identify and more precisely locate future events in this region. The Zagros Mountains exhibit tectonic features resulting from the collision of the Arabian and Eurasian plates. Investigations of Pn and Pg anisotropy throughout the Zagros Mountains in northern Iraq reveal azimuthal velocity variations on the order of 2%.