Integrating Seismic Property Models with Gravity Data along the Cascadia Forearc

The Cascadia margin in the Pacific Northwest of US is characterized by the subduction of the young and warm Juan De Fuca beneath the North American plate. This region shows strong correlations in spatial heterogeneities in geophysical observations such as thickness of low shear wave velocity zones in the lower crust, tremors distribution, intraslab seismicity, topography, uplift rates, and Bouguer gravity anomalies. In this thesis, both 3D and 2.5D forward gravity modeling have been conducted to understand the composition of the materials at ~20-40 km along the Cascadia subduction margin, that can explain the spatial heterogeneities by linking them together.