Seismic Ambient Noise Imaging of a Quasi-Amagmatic Ultra-Slow Spreading Ridge

Abstract

Passive seismic interferometry has become very popular in recent years in explorationgeophysics. However, it has not been widely applied in marine exploration. The purpose of thisstudy is to investigate the internal structure of a quasi-amagmatic portion of the Southwest IndianRidge by interferometry and to examine the performance and reliability of interferometry in marineexplorations. To reach this goal, continuous vertical component recordings from 43 ocean bottomseismometers were analyzed. The recorded signals from 200 station pairs were cross-correlated inthe frequency domain. The Bessel function method was applied to extract phase–velocity dispersioncurves from the zero crossings of the cross-correlations. An average of all the dispersion curveswas estimated in a period band 1–10 s and inverted through a conditional neighborhood algorithmwhich led to the final 1D S-wave velocity model of the crust and upper mantle. The obtained S-wavevelocity model is in good agreement with previous geological and geophysical studies in the regionand also in similar areas. We find an average crustal thickness of 7 km with a shallow layer of lowshear velocities and high Vp/Vs ratio. We infer that the uppermost 2 km are highly porous and maybe strongly serpentinized.