Two-dimensional Inversion of Sea-effect-corrected Magnetotelluric (MT) Data in Jeju Island

Abstract

Jeju Island, a volcanic island located in South Korea, has been one of the main targets of geophysical and/or geological studies because of its tectonic importance related to the volcanism and tectonic link to the southern part of the Korean Peninsula. Recently, as a number of broad-band magnetotelluric (MT) measurements were made, we have examined the deep part of the island. In such an insular setting, it is not easy to properly recover the deep structures such as the lower crust and the upper crust using MT data, because their low-frequency components are strongly affected by the surrounding sea of the island. In this study, we apply the sea-effect correction to the existing MT data collected at a total of 102 sites in Jeju Island. The sea-effect correction makes remarkable changes in the observed MT data at frequencies below 1 Hz, clearly indicating the existence of a conductive lower crust. The 2-D inversion results for both Jeju Southern Line (JSL) and Jeju Northern Line (JNL) show that the transition zone separating the resistive upper crust and conductive lower crust exists at a depth of 20 km on average.