The Bransfield Strait is a seismically active extensional rift located between the Antarctic Peninsula and the South Shetland Islands. The Strait is partly located on continental crust including areas within the transition to seafloor spreading. The amphibious seismic network BRAVOSEIS is an international effort focused on the seismological research of submarine volcanoes and rift dynamics in the Bransfield Strait. This network is the onshore component of the entire network consisting of 15 broadband land stations deployed in the South Shetland Islands and Antarctic Peninsula between January 2018 and February 2020. The offshore components (network code ZX) include 9 broadband ocean bottom seismometers (OBS) across the Central Bransfield Basin and a group of 6 hydrophone moorings spanning the rift area of 200 x 100 km2, with inter-station distance of ~30 km. Additionally, a smaller offshore array consisting of 15 short-period OBSs with an aperture of 20 km and a narrow inter-station distance of ~4 km was deployed around the Orca submarine volcanic edifice south of King George Island. The data will be used to study the geodynamics of the Bransfield Strait and the evolution of the incipient rifting zone in the domain where extension has been suggested. Seismological methods will include earthquake location, source mechanism, surface wave analysis with ambient noise and earthquake data, receiver function and shear wave splitting. The results may shed light on the crustal structure and tectonic regime in the region and image the location and extent of magma accumulations related to submarine volcanic structures. Finally, the results should provide clues to assess the internal processes that occur in the submarine volcanoes of the area undergoing rifting. Waveform data are available from the GEOFON data centre, under network code 5M. Acknowledgments: We thank all participants in the BRAVOSEIS 2018, 2019, and 2020 cruises, with a special acknowledgement to Capt. Jose Emilio Regodon and his crew at R/V Hesperides; Capt. Juan Carlos Hernandez and his crew at Sarmiento de Gamboa; Miki Ojeda, Ezequiel Gonzalez, and all the UTM staff involved in the planification and realization of the surveys. We also thank the Spanish Polar Committee and institutions involved in the management of the Spanish Antarctic campaigns and the development of the Spanish Polar Program. We are grateful for the help and support that we always find in the personnel of the Antarctic Bases, especially the Spanish Bases Juan Carlos I and Gabriel de Castilla.
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Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) CTM2016-77315
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Creator(s):
Heit, B.
a; Yuan, X.
a; Almendros, J.
b; Abella, R.
c; Carmona, E.
b; Aguí, F.
b; Carrión, P.
b a German Research Centre for Geosciences GFZ, Potsdam, Germany, b University of Granada, Granada, Spain, c National Geographic Institute, Madrid, Spain
Almendros, J.; Abella, R.; Carmona, E.; Agui, F.; Carrion, F.; Yuan, X.; Wilcock, W.; Wade, R.; Soule, D.; Schmidt-Aursch, M.; Dziak, R.; Roche, L.; Kane, T.; Gardner, A.; Garcia-Quiroga, D.; Heit, B.; Sondershaus, R.; Tesin, E.; Schmahl, L.; Natalie, J. (2019). Deployment of an amphibious seismic network in the Bransfield Strait, Antarctica [V20P-426]. General Assembly of the International Union of Geophysics and Geodesy (IUGG), Montreal, Canada, 8-18 JUL 2019.
Davoli, R. (2019). Análisis de la sismicidad en el Estrecho de Bransfield (Antártida) durante el año 2018 y principios del año 2019. MSc Thesis, Master in Geophysics and Meteorology, University of Granada.
Parera Portell, Joan A. (2019). Structure of the crust and upper mantle beneath the Bransfield Strait (Antarctica) using P receiver functions. MSc Thesis, Master in Geophysics and Meteorology, University of Granada.
Almendros, J.; Carmona, E.; Carrión, F.; Serrano, I.; Teixidó, T.; Peña, J. A.; Moreno, J.; Mancilla, F.; García-Quiroga, D.; Agüí-Fernández, J. F.; Moreno-Vacas, A.; Jiménez-Morales, V.; Ontiveros, A.; Abella, R.; Sánchez, N.; Martínez-Arévalo, C.; Granja, J. L.; Heit, B.; Yuan, X.; Schmidt-Aursch, M.; Geissler, W.; Bonatto, L.; Martos, Y.; Wilcock, W. S. D.; Dziak, R.; Lees, J.; Caselli, A.; Badi, G.; Julia, J. (2018). BRAVOSEIS: un proyecto para investigar la actividad sísmica de los volcanes submarinos en el estrecho de Bransfield, Antártida. IX Simposio Español de Estudios Antárticos, Madrid, 5-7 de septiembre de 2018.
Almendros, J.; Carmona, E.; Carrión, F.; Serrano, I.; Teixidó, T.; Peña, J. A.; Moreno, J.; Mancilla, F.; García-Quiroga, D.; Agüí-Fernández, J. F.; Moreno-Vacas, A.; Jiménez-Morales, V.; Ontiveros, A.; Abella, R.; Sánchez, N.; Martínez-Arévalo, C.; Granja, J. L.; Heit, B.; Yuan, X.; Schmidt-Aursch, M.; Geissler, W.; Bonatto, L.; Martos, Y.; Wilcock, W. S. D.; Dziak, R.; Lees, J.; Caselli, A.; Badi, G.; Julia, J. (2017). BRAVOSEIS: A research project to investigate the seismic activity of submarine volcanoes in the Bransfield Strait, Antarctica. 2nd Workshop of the SCAR Expert Group on Antarctic Volcanism (ANTVOLC), Barcelona, Spain, 22-24 November 2017.