Evidence for ancient lithospheric deformation in the East European Craton based on mantle seismic anisotropy and crustal magnetics

Abstract: We present new shear-wave splitting measurements performed at 16 stations on the East European Craton, and discuss their implications in terms of upper-mantle anisotropy for this geophysically poorly-known region. Previous investigations of mantle anisotropy in Central Europe have shown fast directions aligning smoothly with the craton''s margin and various suggestions have been proposed to explain their origin such as asthenospheric flow or lithospheric frozen-in deformation. Here, we aim at investigating the continuation of this shear-wave splitting pattern further to the East, into the East European Craton. For the craton, the interpretation appears to be less ambiguous than for central Europe since several arguments support lithospheric anisotropy in this region: 1) The large-scale coherence within either of the four constituting blocks and the significant variations between the blocks on a small-scale, 2) the weak correlation with absolute plate motion vectors, and 3) the good correlation between anisotropy and crustal features, for which we use magnetic field alignments as a proxy. Rather good correlation of these magnetic features with seismic fast orientations strongly supports the idea of vertically coherent deformation throughout upper mantle and crust. The observed splitting orientations thus reflect the last tectonic events of each block, frozen-in into the lithosphere for hundreds of millions of years. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]