IGCP Project 559

Crustal Architecture and Images

aethetics only

Updated: Jun 02, 2016

IGCP Project 559 - Seismic Images

Western Europe

DEKORP 4 / KTB 85 Transect, Southern Germany (I)
Transect 4N crosses the transition zone between the Moldanubian and Saxo-thuringian units of the Variscan orogen, European Variscides, Southern Germany. This transect is NW-SE and shows deep seismic results near the site of the KTB super-deep (9.101 km) borehole in the Oberpfalz area in NE Bavaria and confirms an extensive overthrusting of Moldanubian onto Saxothuringian units. Transect also shows features of the metamorphic Erbendorf body. Transect 4Q is NE-SW and shows the crustal structure of the Black Forest massif with respect to the role and extent of Variscan thrust and extension tectonics. Transect FTB8501-KTB8506 show the ISO '89 3D experimental results within the KTB drilling site. The survey area includes crystalline units of the Bohemian Massif in the NE as well as Mesozoic and Palaeozoic sediments in the SW, separated by the Franconian Line.

DEKORP 4 / KTB 85, KTB Bore Hole, Southern Germany (II) (PDF 980kb)
Transects cross near the site of the KTB super-deep borehole in the Oberpfalz area in NE Bavaria and report outlines details of the FTB borehole.

Western Alps Transect, Europe (I)
Transect across the European plate, from the preAlps to the west, across the Helvetic and Penninic nappes, the Valais and Insubric structures, the Briançonnais and Austroalpine terrains, the Ivrea Zone, the Piemont suture to the Southern Alpine area. Results show subduction of the European plate under the Adriatic lithosphere.

Western Alps Transect, Europe (II)
Transect across the European plate, showing results from the ECORS transect.

Western Alps Transect, Europe (III)
Transect across the European plate, showing details of part of the results from the ECORS-CROP transect.

Ionian Sea Transect, Mediterranean Sea
Transect across the Ionian Sea between Sicily and Turkey. Structures crossed include the western margin of the Hellenic Arc, the Pre-Apulian zone and the Kefallina transform fault. Results suggest the dominant tectonics were compressive deformation of the Mediterranean ridge and the extensional tectonics of the Aegean arc.

East European Craton Transect, Northwest terranes, Eastern Russia
Transect crosses the southeastern Fennoscandian Shield, East European Craton. Transect starts in the north at Murmansk, crosses the mid-Russia-south Baltica Orogen, passes Moscow, crosses the Kaluga-Ryazan Suture and ends after crossing the Sarmatia and Khopior boundary.

DEKORP 1 Transect, Belgium and Germany
Transect across the Ardennes/ Rhenish Massif, a foreland fold-and-thrust belt. Traverse starts in the the Variscan foreland in Belgium, crosses the Rhenish Massif of Germany and ends near the northern part of the Upper Rhine Graben. Note - this area is part of the European Variscides, a large region that extends from the French Central Massif to the East European Platform. It formed during the collision between Gondwana and Baltica in the Late Palaeozoic.

DEKORP 2 Transect, Germany
Transect across the German Variscides from the Münsterland Basin in the north to the Moldanubian region at the Danube River. Note - this area is part of the European Variscides, a large region that extends from the French Central Massif to the East European Platform. It formed during the collision between Gondwana and Baltica in the Late Palaeozoic.

DEKORP 3 Transect, Germany
Transect across Variscan structures of the Rhenohercynian and the Saxothuringian. Transect starts in the Rhenohercynian Hessian Depression, crosses the Saxothuringian Mid-German Crystalline High and then runs parallel to the northern margin of the Moldanubian. Note - this area is part of the European Variscides, a large region that extends from the French Central Massif to the East European Platform. It formed during the collision between Gondwana and Baltica in the Late Palaeozoic.

GRANU '95 Transect, Central European Varicides
Transect crosses the Saxonian Granulite Massif, part of the Saxo-Thuringian zone of the European Variscides between the NW Mid-German Crystalline High and the SE Moldanubian.Transect shows structure of the exhumed high-pressure rocks in the Central European Varicides, the geometry of an extensional fault zone mapped at surface and structure around and below the Granulite Massif.

Atlantic continental margin Transect, Iberian Peninsula, offshore Spain
Transect across the Galicia Bank region off the Iberian Peninsula. Transect shows details of deep ocean floor (oceanic crust) structures, the ocean-continent transition zone, thinned continental crust and Iberian continental crust.

DEKORP 9 Transect, Germany
Transect crosses the Upper Rhine Graben, and obliquely intersects both the Saxothuringian and Moldanubian regions. These regions are separated by the SW-NE striking Lalaye-Lubine-Baden Baden shear zone. The Rhine Graben is a currently-active rift system.

BASIN '96 Transect, North Germany
Transect crosses the NE German Basin, a region that extends from the Palaeozoic Tornquist Suture Zone to the Harz Mountains, and from the North Sea to Poland. The basin shows a complex image reflecting different tectonic regimes and fault systems.

East European Craton – Southern margin – Stephenson
Transect across south-eastern Sarmatia, the southernmost East European Craton. The Transect crosses the Archaean-Palaeoproterozoic Ukrainian Shield, the Voronezh Massif and the intervening Late Palaeozoic Donbas Foldbelt and Dniepr-Donets Basin. Results image an inverted intracratonic rift basin and subjacent crust and upper mantle.

Andriji Mohorovicic - Defining the Earth's crust
A biography of Adriji Mohorovicic and a brief description of his work in defining the Moho.

Etude Continentale et Océanique par Réflexion et réfraction Sismiques (ECORS) – (French language site), or
Etude Continentale et Océanique par Réflexion et réfraction Sismiques (ECORS) – (English language site)
The objective of the ECORS program is contained intirely within it's name: Continental and Oceanic study by Seismic Reflexion and Refraction (Etude Continentale et Océanique par Réflexion et réfraction Sismiques).

Centre d'Archivage et de Traitement Sismique (CATS)
The Seismic Processing and Archiving Centre is in charge of archiving and distributing ECORS and Marine Geosciences data. It also maintains for the French earth science community the tools necessary for reflection seismic processing. (French and English language site)

DEKORP(Deutsches Kontinentales Reflexionsseismisches Programm)
DEKORP (Deutsches Kontinentales Reflexionsseismisches Programm) was carried out between 1984 - 1997 as the German national reflection seismic program funded by the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (BMFT), now Federal Ministry of Education and Science (BMBF).

Pyrenees Transect, Spain
Transect that runs from the Aquitanian Basin, France, across the central Pyrenees Range to the Ebro Basin, Spain. The Pyrenees is an asymmetric double sided orogen that resulted from collision of the Iberian plate with the European continent during Alpine times.

CAUCASUS EUOPROBE Transect
The Causasus Transect images the geodynamics of Collision-Related Basins. The transect focuses on the Cenozoic collision-related foredeep sedimentary basins along the northern slopes of the Great Caucasus, seeking to decipher their evolution and the relationships in time and space between the basin structures and basement deformation.

EUROBRIDGE EUOPROBE Transect
The Eurobridge Transect crosses paleoproterozoic accretion of Sarmatia and Fennoscandia. The Transect is a broad transect that crosses the south-western part of the craton, extending from the Palaeoproterozoic crust of the Fennoscandian Shield to the Archaean of the Ukraine, spanning the boundary between Sarmatia and Fennoscandia.

SW IBERIA EUOPROBE Transect
The SW IBERIAN Transect crosses a transpressional Orogeny in the Variscides. This Variscan orogen in southwestern Iberia offers a unique opportunity to image and study a transpressional orogen and to examine the partitioning of deformation in 3-dimensional space and time.

GEORIFT EUOPROBE Transect
The Geodrift Transect images geodynamics processes associated with Intracratonic Rifting within the East-European Craton. The Transect addresses the mechanisms of rifting by means of regional studies of the Late Proterozoic-Palaeozoic sedimentary basins of the EEP as well as by detailed analysis of the exceptionally well documented Pripyat-Dniepr-Donets (PDD) Basin, the largest and deepest Late Palaeozoic rift in Europe.

PANCARDI (Pannonian Basin, Carpathian arc, Dinaride ) EUOPROBE Transect
The Pancardi Transect provides information on the dynamics of ongoing Orogeny. The transect offers an outstanding opportunity to study the interaction of asthenospheric and lithospheric processes and their mutual dependencies during volcanic arc and related fore- and back-arc basin development.

Trans-European Suture Zone (TESZ) EUOPROBE Transect
The Tesz Transect provides information on phanerozoic accretion processes and the evolution of contrasting continental lithospheres. The Transect TESZ is a key enigmatic element in the evolution of the Palaeozoic orogens; together with EUROPROBE’S URALIDES project, TESZ will provide new insights into pre-Mesozoic plate tectonics and the assembly of Pangaea.

SVEKALAPKO (SVEcofennian-KArelia-LAPland-KOla) EUOPROBE Transect
The Svekalapko Transect provides information on the evolution of Palaeoproterozoic and Archaean Lithosphere beneath the Fennoscandian Shield. The transect focuses on establishing the character of the deep lithosphere (lower crust and upper mantle) and its relationship to the asthenosphere below the different parts (Lapland-Kola, Karelia and Svecofennia) of the Fennoscandian Shield.

TIMPEBAR EUOPROBE Transect
The Timpebar Transect images basement control on Basin Evolution. The transect focuses on the evolution of Europe’s north-eastern Arctic shelf, comprising the Pechora, Eastern Barents Sea and North Kara Sea basins and their fringing terranes, which outcrop in the Timan Range (northeastern margin of the East-European Craton), Polar Urals, Novaya Zemlya, Taimyr and Severnaya Zemlya.

URALIDES EUOPROBE Transect
The Uralides Transect provides a key to understanding Collisional Orogeny. The transect across the Uralides includes a 2500-km-long suture zone that juxta-poses a collage of accreted oceanic, island arc and microcontinental terranes against a west-vergent thrust stack of foreland basin and continental margin rocks.

KIMBERLITE EUOPROBE Transect
The Kimberlite Transect provides information on the structure and evolution of Cratonic Lithospheric Roots. The project was aimed to clarify the origin and evolution of the deep cratonic lithosphere and combine geochemical and petrological investigation of xenoliths from kimberlites and basalts with geophysical studies for definition and characterization of deep structures.

The PICASSO Research Initiative; 4D-EuroARRAY Demonstration Experiment
PICASSO is a multi-disciplinary Initiative to explore the 3-dimensional structure and evolution of the Betics-Alboran-Atlas in order to develop understanding of the lithospheric processes that resulted in the present day geodynamic scenario. This is an international research program to carry out a multi-scale, multi-seismic experiment in the area which includes: ATLAS, ALBORAN, and SOUTHERN IBERIA.

CROP-ECORS across the Western Alps
CROP was the first plan in Italy to acquire deep crust reflection seismic data. The CROP transect crossed the Western Alpine chain and was a joint venture from the group ECORS-France.

Map of map of Iberian onshore and offshore seismic transects (JPG 140kb)
Map of Iberian onshore and offshore seismic transects for reference