Colorado Plateau/Rio Grande Rift Seismic Transect Experiment
(LA RISTRA)

RISTRA is a deep-imaging seismic experiment using naturally-occurring earthquake sources. The project is coordinated by between New Mexico Tech, New Mexico State, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Dine College, and the University of Texas at Austin. RISTRA is funded by the National Science Foundation and the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics at Los Alamos, and is supported by the IRIS Consortium Program for Array Seismic Studies of the Continental Lithosphere, PASSCAL. The principal goal of RISTRA is to produce sharp images of the seismic structure of the lower crust and upper mantle beneath the Colorado Plateau, the Rio Grande Rift, and the southwestern Great Plains by recording and processing seismic signals generated by earthquakes occurring throughout the world. This imaging is shedding new light on past and present tectonic processes operating in western North America and in other regions of the world. RISTRA 1 broadband seismometers were initially deployed in July of 1999, and the experiment was fully deployed by November 1999. Sites included lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Navajo Nation, Laguna Pueblo, Isleta Pueblo, and the New Mexico State Land Office, and many cooperative private landowners. RISTRA 1 stations were removed from the field in May 2001. During RISTRA 1 over 400 teleseismic earthquakes with body wave magnitude >= 5.6 were recorded by the array. In June of 2004, we began deployment of RISTRA 1.5 . This extension of RISTRA 1 will continue the experiment to the northwest, crossing the western boundary of the Colorado Plateau and extending into the Sevier Desert region of the Great Basin. Key science targets include enhanced imaging of the Colorado Plateau and its western margin. RISTRA 1.5 is supported by Los Alamos IGPP, with instruments provided by the IRIS Consortium More basic facts about RISTRA (information sheet distributed during the experiment). We also have a data summary report on line.

Topographic map (elevation in meters) with RISTRA 1 station locations. Stars represent the 57 stations, diamonds are nearby stations ANMO and ELPA, and triangles represent the stations of the CDROM experiment. Gray circles represent regional seismicity (M > 1.3; 1962-1998; Sanford et al., 1999).

---

Research Results

Receiver Functions	Shear Wave Splitting
Surface Waves	Tomography

---

Presentations and Publications by the RISTRA Group

Ni, J., Wilson, D., Gao, W., West, M., Aster, R., Grand, S., Baldridge, W.S., Deep Structure and Dynamics of the Rio Grande Rift, Annual Meeting of the Seismological Society of America, Sante Fe, NM, Seism. Res. Lett., 79(2), 2008.

Wang, X., Ni, J.F., Aster, R., Grand, S., Seismic Anisotropy beneath the Colorado Plateau and Great Basin transition, Annual Meeting of the Seismological Society of America, Santa Fe, NM, Seism. Res. Lett., 79(2), 2008.

Wang, X., Ni, J., Aster, R., Sandvol, E., Wildon, D., Sine, C., Grand, S., Baldridge, W.S., Shear wave splitting and mantle flow beneath the Colorado Plateau and its transition with the Great Basin, Bull. Seism. Soc. Am., in review, 2008.

Sine, C., Wilson, D., Gao, W., Grand, S., Aster, R., Ni, J., Baldridge, W.S., Mantle structure beneath the western edge of the Colorado Plateau, Geop. Res. Lett., in press, 2008.

Aster, R., Sine, C., Wang, X, Wilson, D., Ni, J., Grand, S., Baldridge, W.S., Mantle structure of the Colorado Plateau and its margins revealed by LA RISTRA, Proceedings of the Geological Society of America, Denver, CO, 28-31 October, 2007.

Aster, R., Van Wijk, J.,and the RISTRA Group, Colorado Plateau Crust and Upper Mantle Structure: Implications for Uplift Mechanisms, Western U.S. Geodynamics Workshop, Santa Fe, August 30-September 2, 2007.

Ni, J., van Wijk, J., Wilson, D., Sine., C., Grand, S., Aster, R., Baldridge, W.S., van Hunen, J., Edge driven convection along the Colorado Plateau – Great Basin Transition Zone: Implications for the morphology and dynamics of the Plateau, EOS Trans. AGU, 88(52), Fall Meet. Suppl., 2007.

Baldridge, W.S., Aster, R., Gao, W., Grand. S., Ni, J., Semken, S., West, M., Wilson, D., LA RISTRA (Colorado Plateau/Rio Grande Rift Seismic Transect Experiment) : A Geophysical Snapshot of Accumulated Collisional Processes on the Craton Margin, Partially Overprinted by Cenozoic Rifting, NM Geological Society Annual Spring Meeting, 21 April, 2006.

Wilson, D., Sine, S., Grand, S., Aster, R., Ni, J., Colorado Plateau crust and upper mantle structure: Implications for uplift mechanisms, EOS Trans. AGU, 87(52), 2006.

Wilson, D., and the RISTRA Research Group, Preliminary Images of Colorado Plateau Crust and Upper Mantle Seismic Structure, IRIS Consortium 16th Annual Workshop, Stevenson, WA, 9-11 June, 2005.

Wilson, D., Aster, R., Seismic imaging of the crust and uppermantle using regularized joint receiver functions,frequency.wave number filtering, and multimode Kirchhoff migration, J. Geophys. Res., 110, B05305, doi:10.1029/2004JB003430, 2005.

Wilson, D., Aster, R., Ni, J., Grand, S., West, M., Gao, W., Baldridge, W.S., Semken, S., Imaging the seismic structure of the crust and upper mantle beneath the Great Plains, Rio Grande Rift, and Colorado Plateau using receiver functions, J. Geophys. Res., 110, B05306, doi:10.1029/2004JB003492, 2005.

Wilson, D., Aster, R., West, M., Ni, J., Grand, S., Gao, W., Baldridge, W.S., Semken, S., Lithospheric Structure of the Rio Grande Rift, Nature, 433, doi:10.1038/nature03297, 2005.

Wilson, D., Grand, S., Aster, R., Ni, J., Colorado Plateau Crust and Upper Mantle Structure and Implications for Uplift Mechanisms, Geological Society of America Annual Meeting, 16-19 October, Salt Lake City, 2005.

Wilson, D.C., Aster, R., Grand, S.P., and Ni, J.F., Results from the LA RISTRA Seismic Array: Implications for the EarthScope Flexible Seismometer Array, Proc. Earthscope National Meeting, Santa Ana Pueblo, New Mexico, 28-31 March, 2005.

West, M., Gao, W., Grand, S., A simple approach to the joint inversion of seismic body and surface waves applied to the southwest U.S., Geop. Res. Lett., 31, L15615, doi:10.1029/2004GL020373, 2004.

Gao, W., S. Grand, W.S. Baldridge, D. Wilson, M. West, J. Ni, and R. Aster, Upper mantle convection beneath the central Rio Grande rift imaged by P and S wave tomography, J. Geophys. Res., 109, B03305, doi:10.1029/2003JB002743, 2004.

West, M., J. Ni, W.S. Baldridge, D. Wilson, R. Aster, W. Gao, and S. Grand, Crust and upper mantle shear wave structure of the southwest United States: Implications for rifting and support for high elevation, J. Geophys. Res., 109, B03309, doi:10.1029/2003JB002575, 2004.

Wilson et al., Imaging crust and upper mantle seismic structure in the southwestern United States using teleseismic receiver functions, The Leading Edge, v.22, n.3, p.232-237, 2003.

Gao et al., Mantle Dynamics Beneath the Rio Grande Rift and Colorado Plateau, Fall Meet. Suppl., Abstract S61A-1115, 2002.

Gok, R., J.F. Ni, E. Sandvol, D. Wilson, W.S. Baldridge, R. Aster, M. West, S. Grand, W. Gao, F. Tilmann, and S. Semken, Shear wave splitting and mantle flow beneath LA RISTRA, Geophys. Res. Lett., 30, n. 12, 1614, doi:10.1029/2002GL016616, 2003.

Wilson et al., Crust and Upper Mantle Structure in the Southwestern United States Using Receiver Functions, SSA 2002 meeting.

Wilson et al., Seismic Structure of the Lithosphere in the Southwestern United States Using Receiver Functions, Eos Trans. AGU, 83(47), Fall Meet. Suppl., Abstract S61A-1113, 2002

Wilson et al., Broadband Seismic Background Noise at Temporary Seismic Stations Observed on a Regional Scale in the Southwestern United States, Bull. Seismol. Soc. Amer., v.92, n.8, p.3335-3341, 2002.

Ni et al., Shear Wave Splitting and Mantle Flow Beneath the Ristra Array, Fall Meet. Suppl., Abstract S61A-1114, 2002,

West et al., Structure of the Uppermost Mantle Beneath the RISTRA Array From Surface Waves, AGU 2002 fall meeting Fall Meet. Suppl., Abstract S61A-1116, 2002

Matzel et al., The seismic structure of the upper mantle beneath the northwestern United States, Eos Trans. AGU, 82(47), Fall Meet. Suppl., Abstract S21F-08, 2001

Gao et al., Mantle Seismic Structure beneath the Colorado Plateau, Rio Grande Rift and Great Plains from Seismic Tomography. Eos Trans. AGU, 82(47), Fall Meet. Suppl., Abstract S21F-07, 2001

Wilson et al., Crust and Upper Mantle Structure of the Colorado Plateau - Rio Grande Rift - Great Plains Transect Using Teleseismic Receiver Functions, Eos Trans. AGU, 82(47), Fall Meet. Suppl., Abstract S21F-09, 2001

Rosca et al., A crustal low velocity zone under the Colorado Plateau; Rio Grande Rift transition zone, Eos Trans. AGU, 81 (48), Fall Meet. Suppl., Abstract T22B-07, 2000

Rick Aster aster@ees.nmt.edu,
Dave Wilson davew@ees.nmt.edu,
New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Socorro, NM, 87801
The New Mexico Tech Geophysics homepage.

Jim Ni jni@nmsu.edu,
Mike West west@nmsu.edu,
New Mexico State University, Department of Physics (MSC 3D), Las Cruces, NM 88003
The New Mexico State Geophysics homepage.

Steve Grand steveg@speer.geo.utexas.edu,
Wei Gao gao@speer.geo.utexas.edu,
University of Texas, Austin, Department of Geological Sciences, Austin, TX 78712
The UT Austin Geophysics homepage.

Scott Baldridge sbaldridge@lanl.gov,
Los Alamos National Laboratory, EES-1, Los Alamos, NM 87545
The Los Alamos National Laboratory Earth and Environmental Sciences homepage.

Steve Semken semken@asu.edu,
Department of Geological Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ
(formerly of Diné College, Division of Natural Sciences, Shiprock, NM)
The ASU Geology homepage.

Eric Sandvol sandvole@missouri.edu,
Department of Geological Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211
The U of Missouri Geophysics homepage.

This page last updated Thu Feb 20 10:06:13 MST 2004, for questions or comments about this page, contact Dave Wilson, davew@ees.nmt.edu.