Above or Below the Moho? Contentious Earthquakes in the Southern East
African Rift
Abstract
We studied seven earthquakes in the southern East African Rift System
(EARS) with catalog depths of 10 to 33km, in locations where the Moho is
thought to be at ~32 km depth (CRUST 1.0). Our
earthquakes include three relocated by Yang and Chen (JGR, 2010) to be
significantly deeper and to be below the Moho. We independently assessed
whether the events occurred above or below the Moho using the Sn/Lg
method (Wang et al., AGU Fall Meeting 2019; see also adjacent poster by
Chen et al.). In a 1D earth, sub-Moho earthquakes produce strong Sn and
weak Lg signals, and intra-crustal earthquakes produce weak Sn and
strong Lg arrivals. All seven events we studied were characterized by
low Sn/Lg, including the three earthquakes interpreted as upper-mantle
events by Yang and Chen (2010) (their events M3 and M5 in Malawi and T12
in Zambia). Although low Sn/Lg is elsewhere associated with crustal
events we suspect that, in the East African Rift, events in the shallow
upper mantle that produce strong Sn at the source may be recorded at
regional distances with low Sn/Lg due to Sn-to-Lg conversion at the
deepening Moho at the rift margins. CRUST 1.0 suggests crustal
thicknesses reach 45 km beneath the cratons adjacent to the East African
Rift, with average Moho dips of 5-10°. Hence even the deepest earthquake
reported by Yang and Chen (JGR, 2010), at 44±4 km, could undergo
significant Sn-to-Lg conversion. Our findings highlight the importance
of careful interpretation of Sn/Lg ratios and motivates our ongoing work
to model 2D propagation effects.