ALBERT

Description: The 50 km long profile 1B was recorded in 1987 as part of the joint reflection venture DEKORP 1 of DEKORP (German Deep Seismic Reflection Program) and BELCORP (Belgian Continental Reflection Seismic Program) groups. It was surveyed to investigate the deep crustal structure of the western Rhenish Massif with high-fold near-vertical incidence vibroseis acquisition. The objectives of the experiment were to analyse deep Variscan and post-Variscan crustal structures in the region and to compare them with the results from the eastern Rhenish Massif gathered from the survey DEKORP 2N. The first results were presented by DEKORP Research Group (1990, 1991) and supplemented by many other researches. The Technical Report of line 1B gives detailed information about acquisition and processing parameters. The European Variscides, extending from the French Central Massif to the East European Platform, originated during the collision between Gondwana and Baltica in the Late Palaeozoic. Due to involvement of various crustal blocks in the orogenesis, the mountain belt is subdivided into distinct zones. The external fold-and-thrust belts of the Rhenohercynian and Saxothuringian as well as the predominantly crystalline body of the Moldanubian dominate the central European segment of the Variscides. Polyphase tectonic deformation, magmatism and metamorphic processes led to a complex interlinking between the units. The Rhenohercynian Zone is a foreland fold-and-thrust belt cropping out in the Rhenish Massif which extends from the Ardennes to the Harz Mountains. This geological unit consists predominantly of Devonian and Lower Carboniferous rocks affected by very low-grade metamorphism (DEKORP Research Group, 1991). The survey 1B was carried out in the western part of the Rhenish Massif and trends nearly N-S starting in the western volcanic zone of the Eifel, the Tertiary Hoch Eifel Volcanic Field represented by alkali basalts and fractionated volcanics. The line also runs over a positiv magnetic anomaly, the Kelberg Magnetic High which is located on the southern flank of the East Eifel Main Anticline. Afterwards, 1B crosses the SE-dipping Siegen Main Thrust and ends in the Mosel Syncline, the northern border of the Hunsrueck Mountains (DEKORP Research Group, 1991). The profile joins line 1A in the north and continues to the southeast with line 1C.