The Deep Velocity Structure of the Central Kola Peninsula Obtained using the Receiver Function Technique

2021 ◽  
Vol 501 (2) ◽  
pp. 1049-1051
Author(s):  
V. V. Adushkin ◽  
A. G. Goev ◽  
I. A. Sanina ◽  
A. V. Fedorov
2012 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Kumar ◽  
X. Yuan ◽  
R. Kind ◽  
J. Mechie

Abstract. The dense deployment of seismic stations so far in the western half of the United States within the USArray project provides the opportunity to study in greater detail the structure of the lithosphere-asthenosphere system. We use the S receiver function technique for this purpose which has higher resolution than surface wave tomography, is sensitive to seismic discontinuities and has no problems with multiples like P receiver functions. Only two major discontinuities are observed in the entire area down to about 300 km depth. These are the crust-mantle boundary (Moho) and a negative boundary which we correlate with the lithosphere-asthenosphere boundary (LAB) since a low velocity zone is the classical definition of the seismic observation of the asthenosphere by Gutenberg (1926). Our S receiver function LAB is at a depth of 70–80 km in large parts of westernmost North America. East of the Rocky Mountains its depth is generally between 90 and 110 km. Regions with LAB depths down to about 140 km occur in a stretch from northern Texas over the Colorado Plateau to the Columbia Basalts. These observations agree well with tomography results in the westernmost USA and at the east coast. However, in the central cratonic part of the USA the tomography LAB is near 200 km depth. At this depth no discontinuity is seen in the S receiver functions. The negative signal near 100 km depth in the central part of the USA is interpreted by Yuan and Romanowicz (2010) or Lekic and Romanowicz (2011) as a recently discovered mid lithospheric discontinuity (MLD). A solution for the discrepancy between receiver function imaging and surface wave tomography is not yet obvious and requires more high resolution studies at other cratons before a general solution may be found. Our results agree well with petrophysical models of increased water content in the asthenosphere, which predict a sharp and shallow LAB also in continents (Mierdel et al., 2007).


2021 ◽  
Vol 873 (1) ◽  
pp. 012056
Author(s):  
M F R Auly ◽  
A K Ilahi ◽  
I Madrinovella ◽  
S Widyanti ◽  
S K Suhardja ◽  
...  

Abstract The tectonic setting of Java island, located at southwestern edge of the Eurasia continent, is dominated by the subduction of Indo-Australia plate. One of the characteristics of active subduction is active seismicity, the generation of arc magmatism and volcanic activity. Mt. Merapi is one example of active volcano related with the subduction process. It is one of the most active volcanoes with location close to high population area. To better understand this area, we employed the Receiver Function technique, a method to image sub surface structure by removing the vertical component from horizontal component. First, we collected high magnitude events and processed RF with water level deconvolution method. Then, we constructed synthetic model with initial velocity input from previous tomography model. Note that we used reflectivity method in generating synthetic model with input parameters matched with parameters from real data processing. Next, we adjusted velocity inputs mainly on tops sediments (1-3 km) to include sediment layers and volcanic rocks, mid-depth low velocity zone that may be related with magma chamber and depth of crust-mantle boundary. Current forward velocity models show a relatively good agreement from 3 stations (ME25, ME32 and ME36). We estimate a thin layer of sediments followed a zone of velocity layer at a depth of 10-15 km and crust-mantle boundary ranging from 26-29 km. In this study, simulated that the signal of sediments layer and low velocity layers interfere main crust mantle boundary that supposed to be highest signal after the P wave in the typical receiver function study.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matteo Scarponi ◽  
György Hetényi ◽  
Jaroslava Plomerová ◽  
Stefano Solarino

<p>We present results from a joint inversion study of new seismic and gravity data to constrain a 2D high-resolution image of one of the most prominent geophysical anomalies of the European Alps: the Ivrea geophysical body (IGB). Our work exploits both new data and multidisciplinary a priori constraints, to better resolve the shallow crustal structure in the Ivrea-Verbano zone (IVZ), where the IGB is known to reach anomalously shallow depths and partially outcrop at the surface.</p><p>A variety of previous studies, ranging from gravity surveys to vintage refraction seismics and recent local earthquake tomographies (Solarino et al. 2018, Diehl et al. 2009), provide comprehensive but spatially sparse information on the IGB structure, which we aim at investigating at higher resolution, along a linear profile crossing the IVZ. To this purpose, we deployed 10 broadband seismic stations (MOBNET pool, IG CAS Prague), 5 km spaced along a linear West-East profile, along Val Sesia and crossing Lago Maggiore. This network operated for 27 months and allowed us to produce a new database of ca. 1000 seismic high-quality receiver functions (RFs). In addition, we collected new gravity data in the IVZ, with a data coverage of 1 gravity point every 1-2 km along the seismic profile. The newly collected data was used to set up an inversion scheme, in which RFs and gravity anomalies are jointly used to constrain the shape and the physical property contrasts across the IGB interface.</p><p>We model the IGB as a single interface between far-field constraints, whose geometry is defined by the coordinates of four nodes which may vary in space, and  density and V<sub>S</sub> shear-wave velocity contrasts associated with the interface itself, varying independently. A Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampling method with Metropolis-Hastings selection rule was implemented to efficiently explore the model space, directing the search towards better fitting areas.</p><p>For each model, we perform ray-tracing and RFs migration using the actual velocity structure both for migration and computation of synthetic RFs, to be compared with the observations via cross-correlation of the migration images. Similarly, forward gravity modelling for a 2D density distribution is implemented and the synthetic gravity anomaly is compared with the observations along the profile. The joint inversion performance is the product of these two misfits.</p><p>The inversion results show that the IGB reaches the shallowest depths in the western part of the profile, preferentially locating the IGB interface between 3 and 7 km depth over a horizontal distance of ca. 20 km (between Boccioleto and Civiasco, longitudes 8.1 and 8.3). Within this segment, the shallowest point reaches up to 1 km below sea level. The found density and velocity contrasts are in agreement with rock physics properties of various units observed in the field and characterized in earlier studies.</p>


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonardo Colavitti ◽  
György Hetényi ◽  
AlpArray Working Group

<p>We developed a new method where teleseismic P-to-S converted waves are used to construct a fully 3-D shear-wave velocity model of the crust. The method differs from ambient noise and local earthquake tomography in its ray-paths being closer to vertical. Our approach requires a dense seismological network, and we first focus on the Central Alps considering the available permanent and temporary station datasets (e.g., Hetényi et al., 2018, Surv. Geophys.).</p><p>We implemented an accurate ray-propagator which respects Snell’s law in 3-D at any interface geometry. Following a teleseismic P ray propagator (Knapmeyer, 2004) from event to station which uses a 1-D global velocity model (iasp91), P-to-S conversion at the Moho is calculated for the crustal S ray considering the true local dip. The corresponding arrival to the surface is typically several km away from the station, which we then adjust by changing the ray-parameter. In the Central Alps, using the 3-D P-velocity structure of Diehl et al. (2009) and the local Moho geometry of Spada et al. (2013), the mean distance between the arriving S-wave and the station is about 150 m (median ca. 40 m).</p><p>For our approach we adopt a new model parameterization of velocities. It is rectangular in map view (nodes at 25x25 km in the Alps), while in depth we define a 2-layer model with separate velocities above and below each discontinuity. The introduction of this flexibility allows us to accommodate a velocity gradient within each layer and investigate velocity jumps across discontinuities.</p><p>The inversion proceeds iteratively, by visiting every node of the map following a Travelling Salesman Path. At each node, receiver function rays in the surrounding volume are considered for inversion, and bundled into sub-blocks and ranges of back-azimuth (5x5 km size, 45° or 60° bins for the Central Alps). The velocity model at the given node is inverted using the technique of Simulated Annealing, followed by a pattern search algorithm to avoid falling in a local minimum. During iterations of the Simulated Annealing, individual velocity model corresponding to each receiver function is extracted from the 3-D model along its ray path.</p><p>The inversion proceeds for 4 or 5 independent parameters: Moho and a hypothetical intra-crustal discontinuity depth, Vp/Vs ratio (either full crust, or separately for upper and lower crust) and the P-wave velocity jump at the intra-crustal discontinuity. Finally, the velocity structure is updated with the result obtained at the given node. We observe that a few rounds of Travelling Salesman Paths improve the overall misfit.</p><p>First results on the Central Alps show that the Moho depth generally reflects well the roots of the Alpine orogen. Resolving crustal Vp/Vs ratio is more stable when considering the full crust, instead of two separate layers. The Conrad discontinuity remains difficult to resolve. The obtained velocity structure is compared along profiles to recent Vs results from 3-D ambient noise tomography (Lu et al., 2018).</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ziqi Zhang ◽  
Tolulope Olugboji

<p>While the receiver function technique has been successfully applied to high-resolution imaging of sharp discontinuities within and across the lithosphere, it has been shown, however, that it suffers from severe limitations when applied to seafloor seismic recordings. This is because the water and sediment layer could strongly influence the receiver function traces, making detection and interpretation of crust and mantle layering difficult. This effect is often referred to as the singing phenomena in marine environments. Here, we show how one can silence this singing effect. We demonstrate, using analytical and synthetic waveform modeling, that this singing effect can be reversed using dereverberation filters tuned to match the elastic property of each layer. We apply the filter approach to high-quality earthquake records collected from the NoMelt seismic array deployed on normal, mature (~70 Ma) Pacific seafloor. An appropriate filter designed using the elastic properties of the underlying sediments, and obtained from prior studies, greatly improves the detection of Ps conversions generated from the moho (~8.6 km) and from a sharp discontinuity (<~ 5 km) across the lithosphere-asthenosphere transition (~72 km). Sensitivity tests show that the filter is robust to small errors in the sediment properties. Our analysis suggests that appropriately filtering out the sediment reverberations from ocean seismic data could make inferences on subsurface structure more robust. We expect that this study will enable high-resolution receiver function imaging of the base of the oceanic plate across a growing fleet of ocean bottom seismic arrays being deployed in the global oceans.</p>


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