A layered model of the upper crust in the Aigion region of Greece, inferred from arrival times of the 2001 earthquake sequence

International audienceThe western part of the Gulf of Corinth attracts attention due to its seismically active fault system and considerable seismic hazard. Detailed studies of the seismic activity of the region have been carried out especially as part of the so-called Corinth Rift Laboratory (CRL) Project. For standard earthquake locations, the CRL uses the HYPO algorithm and a special structural model that is composed of homogeneous layers (Rigo et al., 1996). This model was derived from a passive seismic experiment in a broader area around the western part of the Gulf. A significant part of the seismic activity is concentrated close to the town of Aigion, which was damaged by a strong earthquake in 1995. A sequence of smaller earthquakes occurred to the south of this town in the year 2001. In the present paper, we have used this sequence to derive an improved structural model for the region in the vicinity of the town of Aigion. This new model is based on the minimization of travel-time residuals. In particular, we used arrival times from a subset of 88 events recorded by at least 5 stations of the southern part of the CRL network, had magnitudes of over 2.3, and were recorded at the nearest station (station code AIO). A variant of the method of conjugate gradients has been used for this purpose. In comparison with the model derived by Rigo et al. (1996), the new model is characterized by a higher νP/νS velocity ratio and by higher velocities to a depth of about 7 km. The new model was derived with the aim to get more accurate locations of future events in the vicinity of the town of Aigio