Collaborative Research: The Uplift and Seismic Structure of the Greater Caucasus

合作研究：大高加索地区的隆起和地震结构

• 批准号: 1620591
• 负责人: Eric Sandvol
• 金额: $ 19.24万
• 依托单位: University of Missouri-Columbia
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-09-15 至 2023-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1620591&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Uplift; Seismic; Structure

This project uses the Greater Caucasus Mountains in southern Asia as a natural laboratory to study the early stages of mountain building. Using data from over 106 new seismic stations in Azerbaijan, Armenia, Russia, and Georgia, the researchers gain a better understanding of the recent uplift of the Greater Caucasus and the nature of earthquake related deformation in the region. This research helps gain better understanding of the processes that lead to the formation of mountain belts on Earth and the sub surface processes that lead to large earthquakes and volcanoes in a continental collision. This project includes improving seismic hazard assessment in continental deformation belts where thousands of lives and billions of dollars are at risk from recurrent devastating earthquakes including some of the world's largest energy producers. The aim is to improve the scientific community's understanding of earthquake hazards and the forces that are actively deforming the earth in a very young mountain belt. The Caucasus region is a logistically and politically challenging region to collect seismic data; however, we have managed to establish collaborative agreement with all of the countries involved in this project to share the data with one another. Due to a lack of quality data, the region has largely been unexplored in terms of the detailed uppermost mantle and crustal seismic structure thus this work is nearly guaranteed to find first order information concerning deep structure beneath the Greater Caucasus. This seismic experiment has two components: (1) a grid of stations spanning the Greater Caucasus and (2) a seismic transect consisting of passive stations spaced at distances of less 5 km that crosses the Greater Caucasus. In addition to the temporary stations, this research integrates data from the national networks to produce high resolution images of the seismic structure. The primary scientific question that this project intends to resolve with the images of the deep subsurface structure is the uplift mechanisms for the Greater Caucasus and how these relate to the uplift mechanisms for mountain belts in general.

该项目利用南亚的大高加索山脉作为研究造山早期阶段的天然实验室。 利用阿塞拜疆、亚美尼亚、俄罗斯和格鲁吉亚超过 106 个新地震台的数据，研究人员更好地了解了大高加索地区最近的隆起以及该地区与地震相关的变形的性质。这项研究有助于更好地了解导致地球上山脉形成的过程以及导致大陆碰撞中大地震和火山的地下过程。该项目包括改进大陆变形带的地震灾害评估，其中包括一些世界上最大的能源生产国，数千人的生命和数十亿美元面临着反复发生的毁灭性地震的威胁。其目的是提高科学界对地震危害以及在非常年轻的山脉中使地球发生积极变形的力量的了解。 高加索地区是一个收集地震数据在后勤和政治上都具有挑战性的地区；然而，我们已设法与参与该项目的所有国家建立合作协议，以便相互共享数据。 由于缺乏高质量数据，该地区在详细的上地幔和地壳地震结构方面很大程度上尚未被勘探，因此这项工作几乎可以保证找到有关大高加索地区深层结构的一阶信息。 该地震实验有两个组成部分：(1) 横跨大高加索地区的台站网格；(2) 由跨大高加索地区、间隔小于 5 公里的被动台站组成的地震横断面。除了临时台站之外，这项研究还整合了来自国家网络的数据，以生成地震结构的高分辨率图像。该项目打算通过深层地下结构图像解决的主要科学问题是大高加索地区的隆起机制以及它们与一般山带的隆起机制之间的关系。