Crustal structure of the central Mediterranean using receiver function analysis

Abstract

The central Mediterranean is a complex tectonic region with compressional and extensional processes occuring at close proximity. This has resulted in strong lateral variations within the crustal structure. In this study, radial receiver functions (RF) were utilized to investigate the crust in the region lying between the southern coast of Sicily and the northern African coast of Libya and Tunisia. A waveform dataset of large teleseismic earthquakes recorded at nine three component broadband seismic stations was assembled through the use of international archives. The RF traces were obtained using both frequency domain deconvolution with water-level and iterative deconvolution in the time domain. The resultant waveforms were analyzed for backazimuthal variations and binned into sets, which were then modelled in terms of horizontally layered, isotropic structures using standard inversion techniques.