Interpretation of Refraction Experiments in the North Sea [and Discussion]

• Published in: Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series A: Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences Vol. 305; no. 1489; p. 101
• Main Authors: P. A. F. Christie, A. S. Laughton, D. G. Roberts
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: The Royal Society 05.05.1982
• ISSN: 1364-503X; 1471-2962
• DOI: 10.1098/rsta.1982.0028

Before 1977, only three long-range seismic refraction profiles had been shot in the North Sea Basin, with somewhat inconsistent results in terms of a description of the Mohorovicic discontinuity (Moho). In the summer of 1977, the Marine Group of Cambridge University fired three refraction lines with the use of pull-up, shallow-water seismometers, the longest reversed profile extending for 400 km along the 0.5 degrees E meridian from east of the Shetland Islands to the latitude of Dundee. Although records varied in quality, a time term interpretation of the results was made with the use of detailed velocity--depth information supplied by the oil industry. This interpretation indicates that there is an anticlinal form to the Moho beneath the deepest sediments of the Moray Firth Basin, as demanded by gravity data from the area. It is further suggested that the seismic evidence supports an extensional model to explain the origin of the North Sea Basin.