scholarly journals Bayesian inversion of the Martian structure using geodynamic constraints

Author(s):  
Mélanie Drilleau ◽  
Henri Samuel ◽  
Attilio Rivoldini ◽  
Mark Panning ◽  
Philippe Lognonné

Summary The ongoing InSight mission has recently deployed very broad band seismometers to record the Martian seismic activity. These recordings constitute the first seismic data set collected at the surface of Mars. This unique but sparse record compels for the development of new techniques tailored to make the best use of the specific context of single station-multiple events with several possible ranges of uncertainties on the event location. To this end, we conducted sets of Markov chain Monte-Carlo inversions for the 1-D seismic structure of Mars. We compared two inversion techniques that differ from the nature of the parameterization on which they rely. A first classical approach based on a parameterization of the 1-D seismic profile using Bézier curves. A second, less conventional approach that relies on a parameterization in terms of quantities that influence the thermo-chemical evolution of the planet (mantle rheology, initial thermal state, and composition), which accounts for 4.5 Gyr of planetary evolution. We considered several combinations of true model parameters to retrieve, and explored the influence of the type of seismic data (body waves with or without surface waves), the number of events and their associated epicentral distances and uncertainties, and the presence of potential constraints on Moho depth inferred from independent measurements/considerations (receiver functions and gravity data). We show that due to its inherent tighter constraints the coupled approach allows a considerably better retrieval of Moho depth and the seismic structure underneath it than the classical inversion, under the condition that the physical assumptions made in coupled approach are valid for Mars. In addition, our tests indicate that in order to constrain the seismic structure of Mars with InSight data, the following independent conditions must be met: (1) The presence of surface waves triggered by an internal source to constrain the epicentral distance. (2) The presence of just a few well-localized impact sources, with at least one located at close epicentral distance (<5○) to illuminate independently the crust and the mantle. In addition to providing tighter constraints of Mars seismic structure, geodynamically-constrained inversions allow one to reconstruct the thermo-chemical and rheological history of Mars until present. Therefore, even with a relatively small amount of large events and in absence of surface waves, constraining the present-day structure and long-term evolution of the red planet remains possible through the use of tailored hybrid inversion schemes.

Geophysics ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. Q1-Q8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mitchell S. Craig ◽  
Ronald L. Genter

The performance of a variety of areal geophone arrays was evaluated using seismic data recorded on a dense receiver grid in a walkaway survey conducted in the Permian Basin of west Texas. Surface waves, trapped waves, and scattered energy have long been recognized as a significant noise problem in this area. Arrays were formed by extracting sets of traces from the main data set and stacking them to produce individual traces of a receiver gather. We calculated semblance of each receiver gather to evaluate array performance. High values of semblance indicate that an array effectively removes surface waves while preserving reflections. Differences in data quality associated with variations in geophone-array design are often subtle and difficult to discern through simple inspection of field records. By calculating frequency-dependent semblance, we were able to detect and quantify differences in array performance.


2019 ◽  
Vol 219 (3) ◽  
pp. 1970-1988 ◽  
Author(s):  
Weiguang He ◽  
Romain Brossier ◽  
Ludovic Métivier ◽  
René-Édouard Plessix

SUMMARY Land seismic multiparameter full waveform inversion in anisotropic media is challenging because of high medium contrasts and surface waves. With a data-residual least-squares objective function, the surface wave energy usually masks the body waves and the gradient of the objective function exhibits high values in the very shallow depths preventing from recovering the deeper part of the earth model parameters. The optimal transport objective function, coupled with a Gaussian time-windowing strategy, allows to overcome this issue by more focusing on phase shifts and by balancing the contributions of the different events in the adjoint-source and the gradients. We first illustrate the advantages of the optimal transport function with respect to the least-squares one, with two realistic examples. We then discuss a vertical transverse isotropic (VTI) example starting from a quasi 1-D isotropic initial model. Despite some cycle-skipping issues in the initial model, the inversion based on the windowed optimal transport approach converges. Both the near-surface complexities and the variations at depth are recovered.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
René Steinmann ◽  
Leonard Seydoux ◽  
Michel Campillo

<p>Seismic datasets contain an enormous amount of information and a large variety of signals with different origins. We usually observe signatures of earthquakes, volcanic and non-volcanic tremors, rockfalls, road and air traffic, atmospheric perturbations and many other acoustic emissions. More and more seismic sensors are deployed worldwide and record the seismic wavefield in a continuous fashion, generating massive volumes of data that cannot be analyzed manually in decent times. Therefore, identifying classes of signals in seismic data with automatic strategies is a crucial stage towards the understanding of the underlying physics of geological objects. For that reason seismologists have developed different tools to detect and classify certain types of signals. Recently, machine learning gained much attention due to its ability to recognize patterns. While supervised learning is a great tool for detecting and classifying signals within already-known classes, it cannot be used to infer new classes of signals, and can be strongly biased by the labels we impose. We here propose to overcome this limitation with unsupervised learning. In this study, we present a new way to explore single-station continuous seismic data with a dendrogram produced by agglomerative clustering. Our method is motivated by the idea that labels in a seismic data set follow a hierarchical order with different levels of details. For example earthquakes belong to the larger class of stationary signals and can be also divided into subclasses with different focal mechanism or magnitudes. We first use a scattering network (a convolutional neural network that makes use of wavelet filers) in order to extract a multi-scale representation of the continuous seismic waveforms. We then select the most meaningful features by means of independent component analysis, and apply an agglomerative clustering on this representation. We finally explore the dendrogram in a systematic way in order to explore the different signal classes revealed by the strategy. We illustrate our method on seismic data continuously recorded in the vicinity of the North-Anatolian fault, in Turkey. During this time period, a seismic crisis with more than 200 micro-earthquakes occurred, together with many other anthropogenic and meteorological events. By exploring the classes revealed by the dendrogram with <em>a posteriori</em> signal features (occurrence, within-class correlations, etc.) we show that the strategy is capable of retrieving the seismic crisis as well as signals related to anthropogenic and meteorogical activities.</p>


1978 ◽  
Vol 68 (6) ◽  
pp. 1663-1677
Author(s):  
Stephen H. Hartzell ◽  
James N. Brune ◽  
Jorge Prince

abstract The Acapulco earthquake of October 6, 1974 (mb = 5.0, Ms = 4.75) resulted in 0.5 g accelerations in Acapulco at an epicentral distance of about 35 km. Extrapolation of the peak acceleration to the source region gives a near source acceleration of at least 1.0 g. If the teleseismically estimated source depth of 51 km is assumed, the Acapulco accelerogram must be interpreted as composed of primarily body waves. This assumption yields a moment estimate of 3.3 ×1023 dyne-cm and a stress drop of 1.5 kbar. However, strong evidence indicates that the source depth is only about 1.0 km and that the record is composed mainly of high frequency (1.0 to 4.0 Hz) surface waves. The character of the record is that of a normally dispersed surface wave. The relatively simple form and high acceleration may be attributed to the high rigidity, crystalline rock types in the region. The three component record is fitted by summing the fundamental and first higher mode Rayleigh and Love waves using a model consisting of a single layer over a homogeneous half-space. The results are also checked using a direct wave-number integration program developed by Apsel and Luco. The moment estimate from the surface-wave synthetics is 2.0 ×1023 dyne-cm.


1982 ◽  
Vol 72 (4) ◽  
pp. 1351-1366
Author(s):  
J. R. Murphy ◽  
T. J. Bennett

abstract A new seismic discriminant based on spectral differences of regional phases from earthquakes and explosions recorded at a single station has been tested and found to work remarkably well. The test data consisted of a well-constrained set of 30 Nevada Test Site (NTS) explosions and 21 earthquakes located within about 100 km of NTS which were recorded on short-period seismographs at the Tonto Forest Observatory in central Arizona at an epicentral distance averaging 530 km. The events in the data set cover a magnitude range from 3.3 to 4.8 (mb) for which Pn, Pg, and Lg phases have been analyzed. We found that, although Lg phases from earthquakes are typically more prominent than for explosions with comparable P-wave amplitude levels, simple time-domain Lg/P amplitude ratios do not result in a separation of the earthquake and explosion samples consistent enough to provide reliable discrimination. However, spectral analyses of the data over the frequency band from 0.5 to 5.0 Hz revealed significant differences in the spectra of certain regional phases which proved to be a quite reliable discriminant. In particular, both the Pg and Lg spectra from earthquakes have been found to be richer in high-frequency content than corresponding explosion spectra. A discriminant measure, defined as the ratio of average Lg spectral amplitude level in the 0.5- to 1.0-Hz passband to that in the 2.0- to 4.0-Hz passband, provides good separation of earthquake and explosion populations.


Solid Earth ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 135-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Sodoudi ◽  
A. Brüstle ◽  
T. Meier ◽  
R. Kind ◽  
W. Friederich ◽  
...  

Abstract. New combined P receiver functions and seismicity data obtained from the EGELADOS network employing 65 seismological stations within the Aegean constrained new information on the geometry of the Hellenic subduction zone. The dense network and large data set enabled us to estimate the Moho depth of the continental Aegean plate across the whole area. Presence of a negative contrast at the Moho boundary indicating the serpentinized mantle wedge above the subducting African plate was seen along the entire forearc. Furthermore, low seismicity was observed within the serpentinized mantle wedge. We found a relatively thick continental crust (30–43 km) with a maximum thickness of about 48 km beneath the Peloponnese Peninsula, whereas a thinner crust of about 27–30 km was observed beneath western Turkey. The crust of the overriding plate is thinning beneath the southern and central Aegean and reaches 23–27 km. Unusual low Vp / Vs ratios were estimated beneath the central Aegean, which most likely represent indications on the pronounced felsic character of the extended continental Aegean crust. Moreover, P receiver functions imaged the subducted African Moho as a strong converted phase down to a depth of about 100 km. However, the converted Moho phase appears to be weak for the deeper parts of the African plate suggesting nearly complete phase transitions of crustal material into denser phases. We show the subducting African crust along eight profiles covering the whole southern and central Aegean. Seismicity of the western Hellenic subduction zone was taken from the relocated EHB-ISC catalogue, whereas for the eastern Hellenic subduction zone, we used the catalogues of manually picked hypocentre locations of temporary networks within the Aegean. Accurate hypocentre locations reveal a significant change in the dip angle of the Wadati–Benioff zone (WBZ) from west (~ 25°) to the eastern part (~ 35°) of the Hellenic subduction zone. Furthermore, a zone of high deformation can be characterized by a vertical offset of about 40 km of the WBZ beneath the eastern Cretan Sea. This deformation zone may separate a shallower N-ward dipping slab in the west from a steeper NW-ward dipping slab in the east. In contrast to hypocentre locations, we found very weak evidence for the presence of the slab at larger depths in the P receiver functions, which may result from the strong appearance of the Moho multiples as well as eclogitization of the oceanic crust. The presence of the top of a strong low-velocity zone at about 60 km depth in the central Aegean may be related to the asthenosphere below the Aegean continental lithosphere and above the subducting slab. Thus, the Aegean mantle lithosphere seems to be 30–40 km thick, which means that its thickness increased again since the removal of the mantle lithosphere about 15 to 35 Ma ago.


2021 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mie Ichihara ◽  
Kazuya Yamakawa ◽  
Dan Muramatsu

AbstractA volcanic eruption transmits both seismic and infrasound signals. The seismo-acoustic power ratio is widely used to investigate the eruption behaviors and the source dynamics. It is often the case that seismic data during an eruption are significantly contaminated or even dominated by ground shaking due to infrasound (air-to-ground signals). To evaluate the contribution of infrasound-originated power in the seismic data, we need a response function of the seismic station to infrasound. It is rare to obtain a seismo-acoustic data set containing only infrasound signals, though it is ideal for calculating the response function. This study proposes a simple way to calculate the response function using seismo-acoustic data containing infrasound and independent seismic waves. The method requires data recorded at a single station and mainly uses the cross-correlation function between the infrasound data and the Hilbert transform of the seismic data. It is tested with data recorded by a station at Kirishima volcano, Japan, of which response function has been constrained. It is shown that the method calculates a proper response function even when the seismic data contain more significant seismic power (or noise) than the air-to-ground signals. The proposed method will be useful in monitoring and understanding eruption behaviors using seismo-acoustic observations.


Geophysics ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 77 (6) ◽  
pp. N17-N24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhaoyun Zong ◽  
Xingyao Yin ◽  
Guochen Wu

The fluid term in the Biot-Gassmann equation plays an important role in reservoir fluid discrimination. The density term imbedded in the fluid term, however, is difficult to estimate because it is less sensitive to seismic amplitude variations. We combined poroelasticity theory, amplitude variation with offset (AVO) inversion, and identification of P- and S-wave moduli to present a stable and physically meaningful method to estimate the fluid term, with no need for density information from prestack seismic data. We used poroelasticity theory to express the fluid term as a function of P- and S-wave moduli. The use of P- and S-wave moduli made the derivation physically meaningful and natural. Then we derived an AVO approximation in terms of these moduli, which can then be directly inverted from seismic data. Furthermore, this practical and robust AVO-inversion technique was developed in a Bayesian framework. The objective was to obtain the maximum a posteriori solution for the P-wave modulus, S-wave modulus, and density. Gaussian and Cauchy distributions were used for the likelihood and a priori probability distributions, respectively. The introduction of a low-frequency constraint and statistical probability information to the objective function rendered the inversion more stable and less sensitive to the initial model. Tests on synthetic data showed that all the parameters can be estimated well when no noise is present and the estimated P- and S-wave moduli were still reasonable with moderate noise and rather smooth initial model parameters. A test on a real data set showed that the estimated fluid term was in good agreement with the results of drilling.


2020 ◽  
Vol 223 (3) ◽  
pp. 2085-2100
Author(s):  
Toru Taira ◽  
Kazunori Yoshizawa

SUMMARY Radially anisotropic S-wave structures under the permanent seismic stations in Australia are reconstructed using multimode surface waves (SWs) and receiver functions (RFs) in a framework of the Bayesian inference. We have developed a fully nonlinear method of joint inversions incorporating P-RFs and multimode Rayleigh and Love waves, based on the transdimensional Hierarchical Bayesian formulation. The method allows us to estimate a probabilistic Earth model taking account of the complexity and uncertainty of Earth structure, by treating the model parameters and data errors as unknowns. The Parallel Tempering algorithm is employed for the effective parameter search based on the reversible-jump Markov Chain Monte Carlo method. The use of higher modes enables us to enhance the sensitivity to the depth below the continental asthenosphere. Synthetic experiments indicate the importance of higher mode SWs for the better recovery of radial anisotropy in the whole depth range of the upper mantle. The method is applied to five Global Seismographic Network stations in Australia. While the S-wave models in eastern Australia show shallow lithosphere–asthenosphere boundary (LAB) above 100 km depth, those in central and Western Australia exhibit both mid-lithosphere discontinuities (MLDs) and LAB. Also, seismic velocity jumps equivalent to the Lehmann discontinuity (L-D) are found in all seismic stations. The L-D under the Australian continents is found at around 200–300 km depth, depending on locations. Radial anisotropy in the depth range between LAB and L-D tends to show faster SH anomalies, which may indicate the effects of horizontal shear underneath the fast-moving Australian plate.


Geophysics ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 77 (3) ◽  
pp. O1-O19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad S. Shahraeeni ◽  
Andrew Curtis ◽  
Gabriel Chao

A fast probabilistic inversion method for 3D petrophysical property prediction from inverted prestack seismic data has been developed and tested on a real data set. The inversion objective is to estimate the joint probability density function (PDF) of model vectors consisting of porosity, clay content, and water saturation components at each point in the reservoir, from data vectors with compressional- and shear-wave-impedance components that are obtained from the inversion of seismic data. The proposed inversion method is based on mixture density network (MDN), which is trained by a given set of training samples, and provides an estimate of the joint posterior PDF’s of the model parameters for any given data point. This method is much more time and memory efficient than conventional nonlinear inversion methods. The training data set is constructed using nonlinear petrophysical forward relations and includes different sources of uncertainty in the inverse problem such as variations in effective pressure, bulk modulus and density of hydrocarbon, and random noise in recorded data. Results showed that the standard deviations of all model parameters were reduced after inversion, which shows that the inversion process provides information about all parameters. The reduction of uncertainty in water saturation was smaller than that for porosity or clay content; nevertheless the maximum of the a posteriori (MAP) of model PDF clearly showed the boundary between brine saturated and oil saturated rocks at wellbores. The MAP estimates of different model parameters show the lateral and vertical continuity of these boundaries. Errors in the MAP estimate of different model parameters can be reduced using more accurate petrophysical forward relations. This fast, probabilistic, nonlinear inversion method can be applied to invert large seismic cubes for petrophysical parameters on a standard desktop computer.


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