CRUSTAL THICKNESS VARIATIONS IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA FROM LOS-ANGELES REGION SEISMIC EXPERIMENT PASSIVE PHASE TELESEISMIC TRAVEL-TIMES

The goal of the 1993 Los Angeles Region Seismic Experiment (LARSE93) p assive phase was to collect waveform data from local and distant earth quakes to study lower crust and upper mantle structural features in so uthern California, particularly under the San Gabriel Mountains and Sa n Andreas fault. During LARSE93, approximately 88 stations were deploy ed in a 175-km-long, linear array across the Los Angeles basin, San Ga briel Mountains, and Mojave Desert northeast of Los Angeles. During th e four weeks of continuous recording, teleseismic events recorded at e ach site provided a wide range of ray path backazimuths. The teleseism ic events included a number of intermediate-magnitude earthquakes with epicenters in the Aleutian Island, Kamchatka, Kuril Island, mid-Atlan tic Ridge, Solomon Island, Japan, Fiji Island, and Chile regions. This experiment was followed by LARSE94, which involved land refraction an d deep-crustal seismic reflection profiles from offshore and onshore e xplosion sources. We have used the joint data sets in this study to di stinguish upper crustal features from adjacent lower crustal and upper mantle structures. P-wave travel times were determined from 17 telese isms, and upper crustal residual signatures were removed by incorporat ing LARSE94 upper crustal velocity model results. Within each backazim uth range, the resulting relative traveltime residuals increase from n egative values (-0.5-sec average) recorded in the northern San Gabriel Valley-southern San Gabriel Mountain foothills to positive values (0. 2-sec average) in the central and northern San Gabriel Mountains. The residual patterns display variations for different backazimuths and in cidence angles but show almost no lateral spatial shift of maximum or minimum residual along the array, indicating that the dominant source of the residual pattern is shallow (<50 km). The patterns of residuals require a sharp lateral gradient in shallow velocities between the no rthern San Gabriel Valley (located in the northernmost Los Angeles bas in) and the San Gabriel Mountains over a distance of less than 50 km. Most of the residual pattern can be explained by laterally varying cru stal thickness and a high-velocity anomaly in the upper mantle. In our model of Moho depth variations, the northern San Gabriel Valley to th e southwest of the array is underlain by thinned continental crust. Cr ustal thickness increases laterally by 12 km over a distance of less t han 50 km into the San Gabriel Mountains. This conclusion is supported by widespread surface evidence for rift-style volcanism and crustal e xtension in southern California crustal rocks.