Moritz Fliedner - Previous Research

In 1997, I received my Ph.D. in the Geophysics Department at Stanford University.

I worked in the Crustal Geophysics Group lead by Professors Simon Klemperer and George Thompson. One of my main interests is the structure of volcanic arcs. In two field seasons I participated in large-scale geophysical collaborations to collect the data for my studies: In 1993 the Southern Sierra Nevada Continental Dynamics (SSCD) group conducted a seismic refraction experiment in southern California with two crossing lines along and across the highest part of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, each about 300 km long. A total of twenty-four 500-to-4000-kg ammonium-nitrate shots and the NPE (Non-Proliferation Experiment) kiloton shot at Nevada Test Site were recorded on 600 portable seismometers in each line.

About one third of the seismometers we used came from the PASSCAL Instrument Center, which was at that time located at Stanford.

The SSCD data give new insight in the tectonic development of three geologic provinces: the fore-arc basin of the Great Central Valley, the Sierra Nevada batholith (the remnant of a Mesozoic volcanic arc) and the extensional, block-faulted Basin and Range Province of California.
You can find more information about this experiment in a one-page summary (Postscript format), originally written for IRIS and on Stanley Ruppert's SSCD home page.

The abstracts currently available on the net giving results to date from this experiment are listed below:

• Moritz M. Fliedner, Stanley Ruppert, and SSCD Working Group, 1996: Three-dimensional crustal structure of the southern Sierra Nevada from seismic fan profiles and gravity modeling, Geology, v. 24, no. 4, p. 367-370.
• M M Fliedner and SSCD Working Group, 1993: Preliminary Results From the Southern Sierra Nevada Continental Dynamics Project 1993: Wide-Angle Fan Profiles, EOS, v. 74, no. 43, p. 414.
• M Fliedner and S Ruppert, 1994: Southern Sierra Nevada: P-Wave Velocity and Moho Depth Modelling, EOS, v. 75, no. 44, p. 585.
• S D Ruppert, M Fliedner, and K Miller, 1994: Detailed crustal structure beneath the Southern Sierra Nevada Region: Refraction/wide-angle reflection P-wave modeling, EOS, v. 75, no. 44, p. 644.
• M M Fliedner and S L Klemperer, 1996: Crustal velocities and Moho Depth of the Southern Sierra Nevada of California: 3-D Wide-Angle Seismic Refraction and Reflection Combined with Gravity Studies, Geol. Soc. Am., Abstracts with Programs, v. 28, no. 7, p. 196.
• M M Fliedner and S L Klemperer, 1996: A Tale of two Arcs: Wide-Angle Seismic Investigations of the Composition and Structure of the Sierra Nevada of California and the Aleutian Arc, Alaska, EOS, v. 77, no. 46, p. 659.

In the summer of 1994 we recorded multichannel seismic data from the R.V. Ewing in southwestern Alaska on 27 land stations, again with instruments from PASSCAL Instrument Center. Our wide-angle recordings provide information about seismic velocities in the crust and upper mantle of the Aleutian Arc and Bering Sea back-arc basin built on Mesozoic oceanic crust to the west and continental crust to the east. This area is a prime example for the growth of continents by accretion of island arcs.
You can find more information about this experiment in a one-page summary (Postscript format), originally written for IRIS, and in the data report for the IRIS Data Management Center where the digital data are archived.

The abstracts currently available on the net giving results to date from this experiment are listed below:

• S L Klemperer and M Fliedner, 1994: Wide-angle recordings of marine MCS profiles in the Aleutian Islands and the Alaska Peninsula, EOS, v. 75, no. 44, p. 643.
• M M Fliedner and Aleutian Working Group, 1995: Seismic Structure of the Eastern Aleutian Arc from Wide-Angle Measurements, EOS, v. 76, no. 46, p. 593.
• M M Fliedner and S L Klemperer, 1996: A Tale of two Arcs: Wide-Angle Seismic Investigations of the Composition and Structure of the Sierra Nevada of California and the Aleutian Arc, Alaska, EOS, v. 77, no. 46, p. 659.