The crustal characteristics at syn- and/or post-rifting in eastern Shikoku basin by seismic reflection survey

Imaging of the arc-backarc transition zone is important in relation to the backarc opening process. Shikoku Basin locates between the Kyushu-Palau Ridge and the Izu-Ogasawara Arc, which is an important area to reveal the opening evolution of the backarc basins as a part of the growth process of the Philippine Sea. The Shikoku Basin was in the backarc rifting and spreading stage during about 30-15 Ma (e.g. Okino et al., 1994). High P-wave velocity lower crust is identified in arc-backarc transition zone by refraction survey using OBSs (Takahashi et al., 2007). Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) carried out multi-channel seismic reflection (MCS) survey using 12,000 cu.in. air gun and 5 km streamer with 204 ch hydrophones in the Izu-Ogasawara region since 2004. We extracted and mapped the crustal characteristics from poststack and prestack depth migrated profiles. According to obtained profiles, the deformation structure with share component is recognized in arc-backarc transition zone, which located eastern side of Shikoku Basin from Zenisu Ridge to about 500 km south. The maximum width of this deformation zone is about 100 km. The relative displacement of horizon is little; however, it is strongly deformed from upper crust beneath seafloor. This deformation zone indicates the post- rifting activity in east side of Shikoku Basin. On the other hand, some knolls are indicated along the en- echelon arrangement from Izu-Ogasawara arc. Ishizuka et al. (2003) reported post-rifting volcanism with Miocene age in en-echelon arrangement. A part of these knolls are estimated to penetrate at syn-rifting and/or post-rifting stage in backarc opening. By comparing the both side of arc-backarc transition zone, we elucidate syn- and post-rifting effect in Shikoku Basin. We also carried out high density MCS surveys in Shikoku Basin in order to IODP proposal site for reconstruction of magmatic processes since Oligocene in rear arc. In this survey, we use new tuned airgun array with total capacity of 7,800 cu. in. for high resolution imaging. Preliminary result shows that the proposed site is covered with thick sediments, and acoustic basement is seen at depth of 1.5-2 km (1.5-2 sec in two way traveltime) from sea bottom, a part of which is discontinuous. Many clear reflectors can be observed within sediments, some of which corresponding to those identified in previous MCS lines.