Seismic ambient noise tomography across southern Australia
Created: 07 Nov 2024 Revised: 26 Mar 2025

The rocks of southern Australia record over three billion years of Earth's evolution, but the basement geology is veiled by sediment. Geophysical data are needed to unveil the geology. The 2018-2022 Lake Eyre Basin and 2020-2022 AusArray SA...

The rocks of southern Australia record over three billion years of Earth's evolution, but the basement geology is veiled by sediment. Geophysical data are needed to unveil the geology. The 2018-2022 Lake Eyre Basin and 2020-2022 AusArray SA seismic arrays expand seismic coverage in South Australia. In conjunction with permanent and preceding temporary arrays, we extracted Rayleigh wave dispersion data from ambient noise recordings at a total of 501 seismic stations spanning the transition from Precambrian to Phanerozoic Australia. These data were used to develop Rayleigh wave phase velocity maps of southern Australia at periods 3-20 s, and in turn, a shear wave velocity model to 20km depth. At upper-crustal depths, low velocity structure tracks Phanerozoic sedimentary accumulations. The Moyston Fault, regarded as the boundary between the Delamerian and Lachlan Orogens, has an intermittent expression in the shear velocity model: it has no obvious expression at depths shallower than ~10 km, but in the mid-crust is marked by a velocity contrast in southern Victoria and a velocity contrast tracing the southern edge of the Darling Basin in western New South Wales. An arcuate velocity contrast characterising the western edge of deep, sediment-filled troughs of the Darling Basin is a candidate for the transition from Precambrian to Phanerozoic crust. Fluid derived from neotectonic metamorphic devolatilization and/or remnant hydrated mantle is our preferred hypothesis for explaining seismicity and coincident seismic and conductivity anomalies in the mid-to-lower crust beneath the Ikara-Flinders Ranges. Our model suggests that the Olympic Dam and Carrapateena IOCG deposits reside above the margin of a mid-crustal low seismic velocity zone. We surmise that this might reflect past metalliferous fluid movement associated with the Olympic Cu-Au Province, akin to low reflectivity and low resistivity zones evident in 2D reflection seismic and magnetotelluric profiles, respectively.

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About this record

Record No mesac1
Topic Geoscientific Information
Type of Resource Dataset
Category Type
Document Type
Contributor
Sponsor
Tenement
Tenement Holder
Operator
Geological Province
    Other
    Mine Name
    Stratigraphy
    Commodity
      Notes
      
                          
                          
      
                          
                        
      Language English
      Metadata Standard ISO 19115-3

      Citations

      Use constraints License
      License Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
      Persistent identifier https://pid.sarig.sa.gov.au/dataset/mesac1
      Citation Seismic ambient noise tomography across southern Australia
      https://pid.sarig.sa.gov.au/dataset/mesac1

      Technical information

      Status Completed
      Maintenance and Update Frequency
      Geographic Reference GDA2020 (EPSG:7844)
      Geo bounding box {"type":"Polygon","coordinates":[[[133.4,-38.1],[145.8,-38.1],[145.8,-25.9],[133.4,-25.9],[133.4,-38.1]]]}
      Purpose
      To aid in geological exploration.
      To aid in geological exploration.
      Lineage
      This data package contains 1D shear velocity profiles, 2D shear velocity amd 2D phase velocity grids derived from a number of surveys including AusArray SA (2020-22), Lake Eyre Basin Array (2018-19), Marla Line (2018-19), Bilby (2008-11), SOC...
      This data package contains 1D shear velocity profiles, 2D shear velocity amd 2D phase velocity grids derived from a number of surveys including AusArray SA (2020-22), Lake Eyre Basin Array (2018-19), Marla Line (2018-19), Bilby (2008-11), SOC (2007-08), TASMAL (2003-05), SKIPPY (1993-95), ANSN (1994-), WOMBAT (2008-), ASIS (2011-) and SAA (2015-). The subject modelled area covers Northern, Central and Eastern South Australia, Western NSW and Western Victoria.
      Ambient noise correlations were used to extract interstation Rayleigh wave dispersion data from a total of 501 current and preceding seismic stations across southern Australia. From these data, Rayleigh wave phase velocity maps at periods 3-20 s, and in turn, a vertically-polarised shear wave velocity (VSV ) model of southern Australian crustal structure to 20km depth were developed.
      Data is delivered as 2D .grd depth and time slices.
      
      Usage limitations: caution should be taken when interpreting structures at depths less than ~10 km or greater than ~200 km, as model sensitivities are low in these depth ranges.
      MT survey station positional accuracy is given to ~100 m.

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