Abstract:

In order to study the trend, shape and tectonic setting of the Changle—Nan’ao fault and Binhai (littoral) fault, the Earthquake Administration of Fujian Province expanded seismic sounding into the southwest Taiwan Strait using large volume air-gun arrays and Ocean Bottom Seismometers (OBSs), which formed a relatively complete observation system in conjunction with onshore explosions and portable seismometers. In this paper, we introduce in detail the six profiles collected between 2013 and 2015, including the observation system, acquisition parameters, and data preprocessing. Due to rational choice of shooting parameters and receiver position, a variety of seismic phases, including Pg, PmP, Pn, Sg, and SmS, can be clearly identified in most common receiver gathers of the portable seismometers and OBSs. By multiple shooting the air-gun array at fixed site, we obtained several stacked common shot gathers, of which the signal-to-noise ratios were as high as those acquisition with ton-level explosions. Compared with the data recorded by onshore seismometers, the data recorded by OBSs have a relative low signal-to-noise ratio, which probably means that the seabed in this area has a higher absorption. In light of low velocity and acute variety of deposition thickness in the southwest Taiwan Strait, we transfer the travel times, which were picked up on the common receiver gathers to shot domain, in order to avoid the errors of sediment model, which resulted in pseudo deep structures.

Key words: Southwest Taiwan Strait, onshore-offshore seismic exploration, wide angle reflection and refraction profile, near-surface correction