Geodynamics of Indentor Corners  
Project Overview  

Seismic Experiment
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Pilot Project  
The seismic component of this project includes a PASSCAL deployment to determine lithospheric architecture, rheology, and fault kinematics, and their relationship to deeper mantle structure. The region is active seismically as indicated by events recorded by the Chinese Seismological Bureau. In May 2003 we will deploy a 50 station broadband array (shown below) across southeastern Tibet. Stations will record local, regional, and teleseismic events over a 12 month period. The regional broadband array will be used to determine crustal and upper mantle structure and dynamics at the plate edge, to develop a more complete model of coupled crustal deformation and mantle flow in the syntaxial region.
 
Nested within the regional array we will deploy a dense 20 element short period array to determine active fault kinematics and crustal structure and rheology beneath the massif. Data analysis will include tomographic inversions for velocity and attenuation structure beneath the massif and the broader syntaxial region to constrain rheology, receiver-function analysis to determine primary structural boundaries, and earthquake location and focal-mechanism solutions, seismic moment analysis, and determination of shear-wave splitting parameters to look at strain and thermal structure.