5M (2018-2020): BRAVOSEIS Onshore Seismic Array

• Deutsches GeoForschungsZentrum GFZ (GFZ Potsdam), Germany
• National Geographic Institute, Madrid, Spain, Spain
• University of Granada (UGR), Spain

The Bransfield Strait is a seismically active extensional rift located between the Antarctic Peninsula and the South Shetland Islands. The Strait is partly located on continental crust including areas within the transition to seafloor spreading. The amphibious seismic network BRAVOSEIS is an international effort focused on the seismological research of submarine volcanoes and rift dynamics in the Bransfield Strait. This network is the onshore component of the entire network consisting of 15 broadband land stations deployed in the South Shetland Islands and Antarctic Peninsula between January 2018 and February 2020. The offshore components (network code ZX) include 9 broadband ocean bottom seismometers (OBS) across the Central Bransfield Basin and a group of 6 hydrophone moorings spanning the rift area of 200 x 100 km2, with inter-station distance of ~30 km. Additionally, a smaller offshore array consisting of 15 short-period OBSs with an aperture of 20 km and a narrow inter-station distance of ~4 km was deployed around the Orca submarine volcanic edifice south of King George Island. The data will be used to study the geodynamics of the Bransfield Strait and the evolution of the incipient rifting zone in the domain where extension has been suggested. Seismological methods will include earthquake location, source mechanism, surface wave analysis with ambient noise and earthquake data, receiver function and shear wave splitting. The results may shed light on the crustal structure and tectonic regime in the region and image the location and extent of magma accumulations related to submarine volcanic structures. Finally, the results should provide clues to assess the internal processes that occur in the submarine volcanoes of the area undergoing rifting.

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