DEKORP (Deutsches Kontinentales Reflexionsseismisches Programm) was carried out between 1984 - 1997 as the German national reflection seismic program funded by the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (BMFT), now Federal Ministry of Education and Science (BMBF). From 1983 to 1994 DEKORP was administrated by the former Geological Survey of Lower Saxony, Hannover, now Landesamt für Bergbau, Energie und Geologie (LBEG), Hannover. In 1994 the DEKORP management was taken over by Section 4.1 of the Helmholtz Centre Potsdam, GFZ German Research Centre For Geosciences.
DEKORP was founded in 1983 with the aim to investigate the deep crustal structure of Germany with high-resolution near-vertical incidence seismic methods. It was closely associated with the deep drilling project KTB (German continental deep-drilling program) as well as other European deep-seismic programs (e.g. BELCORP or ECORS). The near-vertical incidence seismic experiments of DEKORP were supplemented by wide-angle seismic experiments, and were also accompanied by research projects which were designed to improve and optimize methods of processing and interpretation. Another purpose was an intensified cooperation with industry.
The main research topic of DEKORP deep seismic studies during the first 10 years was to investigate the lithospheric structure beneath Germany. The resulting seismic images were essential contributions to
- geological research projects revealing different units of the Central European Variscides in Germany,
- exploration studies for a suitable KTB drilling site,
- supplementary and comparative experiments to the KTB.
Associated with the new administrative organisation of DEKORP since 1994, is the changed emphasis of its scientific targets. Between 1994 - 1997 the DEKORP seismic experiments focussed on lithospheric processes in different geodynamic settings, especially orogenic processes (URSEIS '95, GRANU '95, ANCORP '96, TRANSALP '98/99) and basin evolution (BASIN '96) with their attendant phenomena. For these investigations DEKORP was integrated more intensely into interdisciplinary as well as international research projects. Since the foundation of DEKORP a total of 14 seismic surveys have been carried out, each consisting of near-vertical, wide-angle and several piggy back experiments.
Year Survey Location
1984 DEKORP 2S Spessart mountains, Hessian Trough
KTB 84 (1-3) Black Forest
1985 DEKORP 4N and 4Q Oberpfalz
KTB 85 (1-6) Oberpfalz
KTB 85 (14) Black Forest
1986 DEKORP 2N and 2Q Rhenish Massif
1987 DEKORP 1A and 1B Ardennes/Rhenish Massif
1988 DEKORP 1C, 9N and 9S Hunsrück/Upper Rhinegraben
1989 ISO '89 3-D Oberpfalz
1990 DEKORP 3/MVE-90 Hessian Depression/Bohemian Massif
1995 URSEIS '95 Southern Urals
GRANU '95 Saxonian Granulite Massif/Erzgebirge
1996 ANCORP '96 Central Andes
BASIN '96 Northeast German Basin/Baltic Sea
1998/99 TRANSALP '98/99 Eastern
DEKORP terminated at the end of 1997, after 14 years of success. In addition to its scientific impact, a comprehensive dataset was acquired and also significant advances with respect to experimental and processing methods were made. The database includes seismic data of all surveys (raw and processed) as well as supporting-data in digital or paper form. All related DEKORP publications can be found in the bibliography.
Cooperations
