3-D Modeling for Upper Mantle Anisotropy Beneath Idaho-Oregon (IDOR) Region Using Sks Splitting Intensity Measurements from IDOR Passive Seismic Project Dataset

We used data recorded at 86 broadband seismic stations of the IDOR Passive Seismic Project to determine upper mantle anisotropy across the suture along which Blue Mountain island-arc terranes accreted to North America during Cretaceous. This suture is currently associated with the Western Idaho Shear Zone (WISZ), a narrow, highly-deformed ductile fault that was the locus of both dextral strike-slip along, and subduction beneath, the Paleozoic margin of the North American craton. We measured shear wave splitting intensity (SI), a seismic observable that is suitable for use in 3-D inversions of upper mantle seismic anisotropy, to determine these fabrics beneath the IDOR network. SI fast-polarization directions are spatially coherent across the region, and fall into three main groups: a group with fast azimuths trending ENE-WSW, observed at stations in eastern Oregon and the NW-SE-striking western Snake River Plain; a group with E-W trending fast azimuths observed at stations along the WISZ and the Idaho Batholith, which outcrops immediately east of the suture zone; and a group with ENE-WSW trending fast azimuths observed at stations situated in the Basin-and-Range extended region of southeastern Idaho. SI delay times range from 0.46 to 1.85 seconds, with a mean of 1.1 s. We also used backazimuthal variations of SI at all stations to invert for for 3-D anisotropic fabric using the finite-frequency approach called vectorial tomography (Chevrot and Monteiller, 2009). Our preliminary results are consistent with alignment of upper mantle fabrics in the extension direction as Basin-and-Range extension propagates northward into less-extended regions of Idaho and Oregon.