Microseismicity and seismotectonics of the South Caspian Lowlands, NE Iran

This paper is concerned with the microseismicity and seismotectonics of the eastern South Caspian Sea region, where the East Alborz mountains descend to meet the South Caspian Lowlands of NE Iran. To better understand the present-day tectonics and seismicity of this region, which includes the cities of Gorgan and Gonbad-e-Qabus (combined population 500 000), we installed a temporary local seismic network across the area for 6 months between 2009 and 2010. We analysed the seismicity and focal mechanisms together with data from the permanent networks of the Institute of Geophysics, University of Tehran (IGUT) and the International Institute of Earthquake Engineering and Seismology (IIEES), based in Tehran. Microseismicity is focused primarily on the Shahrud fault system, which bounds the east Alborz range to the south. Relatively few earthquakes are associated with the Khazar thrust fault, which bounds the north side of the range. A cluster of shallow microseismicity (<15 km depth) occurs 40 km north of the Khazar fault (within the South Caspian Lowlands; SCL), an area typically thought to be non-deforming. This area coincides with the location of three relatively deep thrust earthquakes (M_w 5.3–5.5) which occurred in 1999, 2004 and 2005. Inversion of teleseismic body waveforms allows us to constrain the depth of these earthquakes at 26–29 km. Although significant sedimentation throughout the SCL obscures any expression of recent fault activity at the surface, focal mechanisms of well-located events from the shallow cluster of micro-seismicity show a significant component of left-lateral strike-slip motion (assuming slip occurs on NE–SW fault planes, typical of active faults in the region), as well as a small normal component. Inversion of traveltimes for well-located events in our network yields a velocity structure for the region, and a Moho depth of 41 km. The pattern of deep thrust and shallow normal seismicity could be explained by bending of the rigid South Caspian crust as it underthrusts the East Alborz mountains and Central Iran. Late Quaternary reorganization of drainage systems in the SCL may be the result of shallow normal fault activity within the SCL

Big 3 differences in Meaning, Meaning Seeking, Free Will, and Randomness

This registration includes a preregistration and survey materials for a study on differences in existential belief systems. (Note: Due to a technical oversight, the pre-registration file is located in "Files" and not on the registration landing page.

Religion, Spirituality, and Meaning Across Countries

This registration is for a study examining the links between spirituality, religiosity, and meaning in life across countries using the Many Analysts Religion Project (MARP) open dataset (osf.io/qbdce)

Lithospheric mantle heterogeneities beneath the Zagros Mountains and the Iranian Plateau: A petrological-geophysical study

© The Authors 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. We apply a combined geophysical-petrological methodology in order to study the thermal, compositional, density and seismological structure of the crust and upper mantle along two transects across the Arabia-Eurasia collision region. Results on the crustal thickness show minimum values beneath the Arabia Platform and Central Iran (42-43 km), and maximum values beneath the Sanandaj Sirjan zone (SSZ; 55-63 km), in agreement with seismic data. Major discrepancies in Moho depth from those derived from seismic data are locally found in the SSZ (central Zagros) and Alborz Mountains where more moderate crustal thicknesses are modelled. Results on the lithosphere thickness indicate that the Arabian lithosphere is ~220 km thick along both profiles, whereas Eurasian lithosphere is up to ~90 km thinner, especially belowtheCentral Iran and AlborzMountains. The lithosphere-asthenosphere boundary (LAB) shows different geometries between the two transects. In the northern profile (northern Zagros), the LAB rises sharply below the SSZ in a narrow region of ~90 km, whereas in the southern profile (central Zagros), rising occurs in wider region, from the Zagros fold-and-thrust belt (ZFTB) to the SSZ. The best fit of seismic velocities (Vp, Vs) and densities requires lateral changes in the lithospheric mantle composition. Our results are compatible with Proterozoic peridotitic mantle compositions beneath the Arabian Platform, Mesopotamian Foreland Basin and the accreted terrains of Eurasia Plate, and with a more depleted Phanerozoic harzburgitictype mantle composition below the ZFTB and imbricated zone.This study is a contribution of the Group of Dynamics of the Lithosphere (GDL) within the framework of the following projects: ATIZA (CGL2009–09662-BTE), TopoMed/ GASAM (CGL2008–03474-E/BTE/07-TOPO-EUROPE-FP-006), TopoIberia-Consolider Ingenio 2010 (CSD2006–00041), TECLA (CGL2011–26670) and DARIUS Programme and its sponsors.Peer Reviewe

Beliefs, Social Connection and Meaning

This registration includes a detailed preregistration as well as the exact survey materials

The varieties of nonreligious experience: meaning in life among believers, non-believers, and the spiritual but not religious

Supplemental material is available online at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2153599X.2025.2546324# .The Spiritual But Not Religious (SBNR) have grown rapidly in developed, secularizing societies. We hypothesize that one reason for the proliferation of the SBNR is that spiritual beliefs, distinct from religiosity, afford some degree of meaning in life to people leaving religion. In two pre-registered studies (USn = 917; UKn = 1,289), we compared meaning in life among religious believers, SBNRs, and non-believers. Religious believers reported the most meaning, followed by SBNRs, and then non-believers, who reported the least meaning. Further analyses revealed that the differences between SBNRs and non-believers are largely mediated by differences in their degree of spiritual beliefs, whereas the differences between SBNRs and religious believers are largely mediated by differences in their degree of social connection. We conclude that spiritual beliefs and social connection play distinct roles in the creation of existential meaning in life, which may partly explain the popularity of SBNRs in secularizing societies.This work was supported by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [grant number 435-2019-0480.]

Variation of Moho depth in the central part of the Alborz Mountains, northern Iran

International audienceThe Alborz Mountains of northern Iran form a belt of active crustal deformation along the southern side of the Caspian Sea within the broad Arabian-Eurasia continental collision zone. Although the range has an average elevation of about 3000 m with the volcanic peak Damavand reaching an elevations of 5671 m, early gravity studies found that the crust beneath the range is no thicker than that beneath the surrounding region suggesting the range is not supported by a crustal root. We determine a model for the crust of the central Alborz Mountains using teleseismic receiver functions from data recorded on a network of broad-band seismographs temporarily deployed across the central part of the range. The receiver functions from these recordings have been inverted simultaneously with fundamental-mode Rayleigh wave group velocity measurements in the 10-100 s period range. Our analysis shows a thickening of the crust from ~48 km beneath the northern part of the Central Iranian Plateau to 55-58 km below the central part of the Alborz Mountains, then a thinning of the crust to ~46 km north of the Alborz Mountains beneath the coastal region of the South Caspian Sea. Our seismological results show that the central Alborz Mountains have a moderate crustal root but of insufficient thickness to compensate the elevation of the range. The analysis of free-air gravity shows that the elevation of the Alborz Mountains is largely supported by the elastic strength of the Iranian Plate, the South Caspian Plate, or both