Batholiths Onland 2009 Photo Recap
In July 2009, several EarthScope/EPIC scientists assisted with the Batholiths Onland project. This large group effort involved over 50 scientists and grad students, for the purpose of making "a seismic refraction and wide-angle reflection survey across the Coast Mountains batholith of British Columbia, Canada."
This rather terse description does not really do justice to the project, which has the purpose of discovering why continental mountain ranges are often made of granite instead of basalt. This phase of Batholiths is for performing seismic imaging of the crust and mantle below the Canadian Rocky mountains in British Columbia, one of the largest collection of batholiths (from the Greek bathos, depth + lithos, rock, a large mass of intrusive igneous rock believed to have solidified deep within the earth) in the world. This involved deploying thousands of seismic sensors and recorders across British Columbia, and recording responses to several man-made detonations. These responses can then be analyzed to yield, first, seismic velocity profiles; these are then related these to variables such as density or temperature, which in turn are related to chemical composition of the crust and mantle. Many other sources of data are also used, including gravitometric measurements, geochronology, broadband recordings of natural earthquake tremors, and more.
According to John Hole, one of the project's Principal Investigators (PI's) from Virginia Tech, the basic goal of the project is to locate the "missing pyroxenes." In brief, as the mantle is distilled chemically below the crust, the result is primarily gabbro, a mafic rock quite similar to basalt in chemical composition. Further distillation of gabbro can remove the pyroxene components, leaving what is basically granite, which we see in these huge, beautiful batholiths.
The Canadian deployments took place from July 9th - 26th, 2009. Here follow some snapshots to show what it's like to participate in a major seismology deployment.
