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Abstract

The profile 1C was recorded in 1988 as part of the joint reflection venture DEKORP 1 of DEKORP (German Deep Seismic Reflection Program) and BELCORP (Belgian Continental Reflection Seismic Program) groups. The seismic survey of the ca. 75-km long line 1C was conducted 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 (1991) and supplemented by many other researches. The Technical Report of line 1C 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 1C was carried out in the western part of the Rhenish Massif and intersects the Variscan main structures almost perpendicular. It stretches from the Mosel Syncline to the Saar-Nahe Basin (WNW-ESE) crossing the Devonian metamorphic rocks of the Hunsrueck Mountains, the Northern Phyllite Zone and the Hunsrueck Boundary Fault separating the Rhenohercynian and Saxothuringian Zones. In the northwest 1C joins line 1B which runs through the Hocheifel area. In the southeast the line continues with 9N running across the northern part of the Upper Rhine Graben.