The Cornell Middle East and North Africa Project
Project Summary:
The research reported in this section addresses geologic and geophysical issues that cover most of the Middle East and some parts of North Africa. The data sets used have diversified sources, and special care is used to select the most reliable subsets. We have investigated the seismic attenuation and velocity characteristics of the uppermost mantle using tomographic techniques in order to map the nature of the mantle lithosphere in the region. We have also investigated the nature of the crust in the region using seismologic databases (crustal thickness and crustal attenuation) and using gravity observations. Finally, we present a summary of a major effort to design and develop an information system (i.e., GIS) for the region.
The research reported here was funded by different U.S. agencies and organizations, including NSF, DoD, and DoE. We also thank GeoArabia for giving us the permission to post the PDF files of our published research on this Cornell website.
Map showing the simplified tectonic units of the Middle East. Regions with topographic elevation over 1,500 meters in the Iranian and Turkish Plateaus are shaded in brown. Basement outcrops of the Arabian Shield are shown in gray. The large black arrows represent major plate motion directions. See Seber et al., 2000.
For questions or comments, please contact Muawia Barazangi: mb44@cornell.edu.
Last updated: March 2016