SEISMIC STUDY OF INHOMOGENEITY OF THE EAR THS CRUST IN THE BARENTS SEA BASIN

Compilation of existing seismic data about the deep structure of the B arents Sea Basin collected by Russian and foreign expeditions by means of sonobuoys and bottom seismographs was carried out. Seismic cross-s ections of the earth's crust and velocity-depth models have been analy zed. Considerable inhomogeneity of the earth's crust structure was rev ealed. Six areas distinguished by crustal structure are located in the study region. The main criteria of dividing were boundary seismic vel ocities of the main layers, character of changes of seismic velocity w ith depth, quantity of seismic layers and their thicknesses, For all s ix areas the statistical analysis of seismic velocity-depth dependenci es was executed and averaged seismic models were constructed. An impor tant result of the work is the location and surrounding of the anomalo us area without ''granitic'' layer in the central part of the Barents Sea, which probably has a riftogenic origin.