Deep seismic survey images crustal structure of Tornquist Zone beneath southern Baltic Sea

The Tornquist Zone is Europe's longest tectonic lineament and bisects the continent in a NW‐SE direction from the North Sea (off NW Denmark) to the Black Sea. New deep seismic reflection and coincident refraction data have been collected across its 50km wide, intensely faulted and inverted NW part. The marine reflection profile in the area north of Bornholm Island shows a tilted block structure in the rigid upper crust, whereas the lower crust seems to be more gently uplifted. A complex transition from the highly reflective lower crust to the mantle is indicated by mantle reflections and a curious wide‐angle event recorded by a landstation on Bornholm Island. We suggest that deep‐reaching inversion tectonics, induced by Alpine and Carpathian orogeny, were responsible for the development of the gross crust‐mantle structure of the Tornquist Zone in our study area, which seems to be similar to that in Poland.