Deep Seismic Imaging of the Hellenic Subduction Zone with New MCS Data of the SISMED Project

International audienceThe southwestern segment of the Hellenic subduction zone has generated a M>8 tsunamigenic earthquake in the past (365 AD), the largest event ever reported in Europe, but fundamental questions remain about the deep geometry and characteristics of the interplate fault and connected splay faults in the overriding plate that might be rooted in the megathrust. In the Fall 2012, the ULYSSE seismic program acquired deep penetration multichannel seismic (MCS) and OBS refraction profiles across a 300-km-wide section of the forearc domain. MCS data were acquired with a 4.5 km-long streamer on board the R/V Le Pourquoi Pas? from the French IFREMER facilities. The two 240 km-long seismic reflection dip profiles reveal a large and rough topography of the top of the forearc crust in both the outer and inner domains, including a several km thick forearc basin. Despite the thick Messinian evaporites at shallow depths, the 11000 cu.in airgun source reveal several discontinuous arcward-dipping reflections at 15 km depth beneath the outer forearc domain that could be related to the top of the subducting oceanic crust. Unfortunately, the 4.5 km-long streamer is too short for improving their lateral continuity and getting more detailed constraints on their geometry. In the Fall 2015, we chartered the R/V Marcus Langseth equipped with unmatched seismic facilities in the European academic fleet by means of a strong mobilization of the French and American involved laboratories (Géoazur, LDEO, ISTEP, ENS-Paris, EOST, LDO, Pau Univ.) and their research agencies (CNRS, NSF, OCA, and UCA). During the SISMED survey (Seismic Imaging inveStigation in MEDiterranean Sea for deep seismogenic faults), we collected with the R/V Marcus Langseth a 210 km-long profile coincident with the eastern ULYSSE transect with the 8 km-long streamer and a 6600 cu.in tuned airgun array shot every 50 meters. The source and the streamer were towed at a depth of 12 m to maximize low frequencies and deep imaging. Here, we will present the preliminary results of the newly acquired high-quality, high-resolution and deep-penetration data and we will provide a comparison of the two datasets collected with different acquisition parameters