Crustal Structure of the Collision-Subduction Zone in South of Iran Using Virtual Seismometers

Improving the resolution of seismic tomography by adding virtual seismometers is an ambitious aim in regions with poor instrumental coverage. In this study, inter-event empirical Green's functions (EGFs) were retrieved using cross-correlation of the vertical component of 630 earthquakes with M ≥ 4 which occurred around the collision-subduction transition zone in south Iran. To extract reliable inter-event EGFs and obtain stable tomographic results, we used about 1300 event pairs with good signal-to-noise ratio, each pair well aligned to a seismic station. Our results show that the retrieved inter-event EGFs agree well with those obtained from earthquakes in similar paths. The inverted velocity model presents two main layers including upper crust (up to ~16 km) and middle crust (deeper than ~18 km) in both sides of the Minab-Zendan-Palami transition zone. The upper crust contains two main layers: sedimentary and basement layers with thicknesses ~6 and ~10 km, respectively. Moreover, the main faults cause lateral variations in these main layers. The difference between the average velocities of the middle crust, between the collision and subduction zones, is about 0.5 km/s, delimited by faults. Also, an area with a 30 km width along these faults can be defined as the collision-subduction transition zone.