Detailed Crustal Structure Study of Sinai Peninsula, Egypt

Abstract

Sinai-Peninsula-Region is a tectonic/seismologic, geologic, and economic significant region, which includes different crustal unites and types acts for a very complex lithospheric structure. Due to this complexity, a need for the detailed 3D velocity structure model is essential for a better location and focal mechanism solution of the earthquakes in this region, so that a more reliable hazard assessment is available. Moreover, the 3D velocity model is an effective tool to reveal the crustal and mantle structures by seismic wave ray tracing techniques derived from its estimated travel times. Consequently, this velocity model could also image/answer the unpredictable questions about the geodynamic with a good reliability, which provides a true understanding/assessment of the geodynamic hazard potentialities in a region that's known for its neotectonic reactivation.

Following a strategy/methodology in the current thesis is to overcome such lithospheric complexity and achieve a detailed/reliable 3D crustal velocity modeling study. Through, enhanced re-picking/re-location of the local and regional earthquakes dataset (1445 events), then inverting it for a high-resolution body-wave tomography. The reliability of this inversion was assisted by increasing the quality and quantity of the re-picked P- and S-arrivals by applying Wadati enhancement and adding other arrivals from neighbor seismological networks, in addition, using an accurate initial velocity model that reliably distribute the depths of the major velocity discontinuities. Whereas the best possible detailed was reliably guaranteed by a precise/careful estimation of the damping value and spatial distribution of the inversion mesh, the reliability of the model (Velocity structure) was tested through the checkerboard test.