The Arcuate Tectonic Belt (ATB) is located at the junction of the northeastern Tibetan Plateau, the Alxa Block, and the Ordos Block. It comprises several major fault zones and intervening basins. These basins have attracted increasing attention for their hydrocarbon potential. However, these basins significantly hamper deep structural imaging, limiting our understanding of the deep interactions between the Tibetan Plateau and surrounding blocks. Previous estimates of sediment thickness, based primarily on widely spaced broadband seismic stations, have been limited by poor spatial resolution. To overcome this, we applied receiver function and H-κ methods to data from a dense seismic array of short-period stations crossing the ATB. Sediment thickness varies dramatically across the belt, with the greatest sediments (~5 km) in the Xingrenbu Depression (XRBD) between the Haiyuan and Xiangshan-Tianjingshan faults, and similarly thick sediments (~4 km) on the western margin of the Ordos Block east of the Luoshan Fault. Forward modeling further reveals that although both regions have >4 km of sediments, the XRBD exhibits lower seismic velocities, resulting in distinct receiver function characteristics in the two regions. Drilling results have also identified hydrocarbon source rocks in the XRBD and the western margin of the Ordos Block, coinciding with the areas of thickest sediments identified in this study and highlighting their considerable hydrocarbon exploration potential. The strong agreement of our results with seismic profiles and borehole data demonstrates the reliability of high-frequency receiver function H-κ analysis using dense arrays for imaging sedimentary structures, with implications for hydrocarbon assessment and deep tectonic studies.
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