Passive Seismic Tomography: A Complementary Geophysical Tool for the Characterization of Mineral Deposits and Geothermal Fields
Abstract
Advances in the design of autonomous seismic stations, in the monitoring methodologies, and in the inversion algorithms, have allowed passive seismic tomography as an attractive geophysical tool for regional characterization of mineral deposits and geothermal fields. The ability to resolve structures will depend on the size ratio of them and the seismic network geometry, as well as the contrasts in the elastic properties of the structures with respect to the surrounding medium. It is well known that Chile is located in a seismically active boundary, where seismic tomography using both locally and teleseismically recorded earthquakes, has traditionally been focused on the determination of the overall characteristics associated with subduction processes prevailing in Chile. However, considering that the high Chilean rate of seismicity we have a good opportunity to use the joint inversion of hypocenters and body-wave velocity structure to obtain a better definition of shallow crustal structure at regional scales. We successfully applied this methodology to characterize ore deposits and geothermal field, using different approaches that have enabled us to reduce the scale of study. Our results show a good correlation between the regional crustal structure and the Vp/Vs ratio variations, improving constrains of the 3D geometry of the buried ore-related intrusive bodies, regional faults geometries, crustal fluid distribution, seismically active fault systems, and temperature-gas crustal distribution of geothermal fields.
- Publication:
-
AGU Spring Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- May 2013
- Bibcode:
- 2013AGUSMNS21B..01C
- Keywords:
-
- 0900 EXPLORATION GEOPHYSICS;
- 7270 SEISMOLOGY / Tomography