Basement Top and Moho Depth Models of West Texas From Receiver Function

Date: 4/25/2019

Time: 06:00 PM

Room: Grand Ballroom

West Texas is composed of a series of mountains, platforms and basins. Most part of the basins in this area is covered by thick sediment layers. It is also a most seismic active area in Texas and the number of earthquakes increases dramatically in recent years. Precise depths of the basement top and the Moho are important for understanding the tectonic evolution of west Texas and improving the knowledge of the lithospheric structure of west Texas. In this study, we derived new estimates of the depths of the basement top and the Moho for west Texas from the seismic waveform data of 73 broadband seismic stations and 260 Mw >= 6 teleseismic events using Receiver Function Analysis. The optimal models are obtained by searching 8232 two-layer models by comparing the similarity between synthetic and real receiver function. The thickness of the sediment is consistent with the well-log data. The Delaware Basin has a thicker sedimentary layer with a thickness of about 5 – 8 km, whereas the Midland Basin has a thin sedimentary layer with 0-2 km thickness. At the same time, shallower Moho depth is found under the Delaware Basin which may be due to the extension of the basin and low density intrusive granitic batholith. A deeper Moho interface is observed beneath the Diablo Platform and Central Basin Platform.

Presenting Author: Peng Li

Authors