Seismic Attenuation and Texture of the Eastern Margin of the Adriatic Plate
Central Questions
– How do intrinsic and scattering attenuation vary across the circum-Adriatic region?
– What do intrinsic absorption and small-scale heterogeneity reveal about crustal deformation, tectonic processes, and lithospheric structure?
– Can information contained in the scattered seismic wavefield improve our understanding of active plate boundary processes beyond conventional seismic imaging?
The eastern Adriatic margin is one of the most tectonically active regions in Europe, where ongoing collision, subduction, and faulting generate significant seismic hazard. While conventional seismic imaging successfully resolves large scale Earth structure, it largely ignores the scattered seismic wavefield produced by small scale heterogeneities in the crust. These heterogeneities may contain valuable information about the geological history, deformation, and physical state of Earth materials. Recent large scale deployments such as AdriaArray provide an seismic dataset that enables systematic investigation of seismic intrinsic and scattering across the region. Leveraging this information offers a new perspective on the processes that control deformation and earthquake generation along the circum-Adriatic region.
This project aims to image the distribution of intrinsic attenuation and small scale heterogeneity along the eastern margin of the Adriatic Plate using scattered seismic waves. By exploiting information that is commonly neglected in traditional analyses, the project seeks to map spatial variability of crustal texture, characterize crustal deformation and heat flow from intrisic attenuation. The resulting models will contribute to a better understanding of plate deformation processes and provide important constraints for future geodynamic and seismic hazard studies within the DEFORM framework.
The project combines local earthquake recordings and ambient seismic noise observations from AdriaArray and complementary seismic networks. Scattering and intrinsic attenuation are quantified through seismogram envelope analysis based on radiative transfer theory, allowing separation of energy loss due to absorption from energy redistribution caused by heterogeneity. Adjoint envelope tomography will be applied to image the distribution of small scale seismic heterogeneity and intrinsic attenuation using sensitivity kernels. The resulting models will be integrated with seismic velocity tomography, earthquake source characterization, seismicity patterns, and geological observations to develop a comprehensive interpretation of crustal deformation and lithospheric processes along the eastern Adriatic plate boundary.