ALBERT

Description: Surface wave tomography routinely uses empirically scaled density model in the inversion of dispersion curves for shear wave speeds of the crust and uppermost mantle. An improperly selected empirical scaling relationship between density and shear wave speed can lead to unrealistic density models beneath certain tectonic formations such as sedimentary basins. Taking the Sichuan basin east to the Tibetan plateau as an example, we investigate the differences between density profiles calculated from four scaling methods and their effects on Rayleigh wave phase velocities. Analytical equations for 1-D layered models and adjoint tomography for 3-D models are used to examine the trade-off between density and S -wave velocity structures at different depth ranges. We demonstrate that shallow density structure can significantly influence phase velocities at short periods, and thereby affect the shear wave speed inversion from phase velocity data. In particular, a deviation of 25 per cent in the initial density model can introduce an error up to 5 per cent in the inverted shear velocity at middle and lower crustal depths. Therefore one must pay enough attention in choosing a proper velocity–density scaling relationship in constructing initial density model in Rayleigh wave inversion for crustal shear velocity structure.

Description: We collect two months of ambient noise data recorded by 35 broad-band seismic stations in a 9 x 11 km area (1–3 km station interval) near Karamay, China, and do cross-correlation of noise data between all station pairs. Array beamforming analysis of the ambient noise data shows that ambient noise sources are unevenly distributed and the most energetic ambient noise mainly comes from azimuths of 40°–70°. As a consequence of the strong directional noise sources, surface wave components of the cross-correlations at 1–5 Hz show clearly azimuthal dependence, and direct dispersion measurements from cross-correlations are strongly biased by the dominant noise energy. This bias renders that the dispersion measurements from cross-correlations do not accurately reflect the interstation velocities of surface waves propagating directly from one station to the other, that is, the cross-correlation functions do not retrieve empirical Green's functions accurately. To correct the bias caused by unevenly distributed noise sources, we adopt an iterative inversion procedure. The iterative inversion procedure, based on plane-wave modeling, includes three steps: (1) surface wave tomography, (2) estimation of ambient noise energy and biases and (3) phase velocities correction. First, we use synthesized data to test the efficiency and stability of the iterative procedure for both homogeneous and heterogeneous media. The testing results show that: (1) the amplitudes of phase velocity bias caused by directional noise sources are significant, reaching ~2 and ~10 per cent for homogeneous and heterogeneous media, respectively; (2) phase velocity bias can be corrected by the iterative inversion procedure and the convergence of inversion depends on the starting phase velocity map and the complexity of the media. By applying the iterative approach to the real data in Karamay, we further show that phase velocity maps converge after 10 iterations and the phase velocity maps obtained using corrected interstation dispersion measurements are more consistent with results from geology surveys than those based on uncorrected data. As ambient noise in high-frequency band (〉1 Hz) is mostly related to human activities or climate events, both of which have strong directivity, the iterative approach demonstrated here helps improve the accuracy and resolution of ANT in imaging shallow earth structures.

Description: Surface waves contain fundamental mode and higher modes, which could interfere with each other. If different modes are not properly separated, the inverted Earth structures using surface waves could be biased. In this study, we apply linear radon transform (LRT) to synthetic seismograms and real seismograms from the USArray to demonstrate the effectiveness of LRT in separating fundamental-mode Love waves from higher modes. Analysis on synthetic seismograms shows that two-station measurements on reconstructed data obtained after mode separation can completely retrieve the fundamental-mode Love-wave phase velocities. Results on USArray data show that higher mode contamination effects reach up to ~10 per cent for two-station measurements of Love waves, while two-station measurements on mode-separated data obtained by LRT are very close to the predicted values from a global dispersion model of GDM52, demonstrating that the contamination of overtones on fundamental-mode Love-wave phase velocity measurements is effectively mitigated by the LRT method and accurate fundamental-mode Love-wave phase velocities can be measured.

Description: We imaged the azimuthal anisotropy of Rayleigh wave phase velocity (10–60 s) in northeast North China Craton using the teleseismic data recorded by a dense temporary array, and then inverted for the 3-D azimuthal anisotropy of the crust and uppermost mantle (20–110 km). The results reveal that the azimuthal anisotropy varies both horizontally and vertically. Obvious stratified azimuthal anisotropy is shown in the Central Orogenic Belt, where the fast direction is NE–SW to NNE–SSW in the depth range of 20–40 km and changes to NW–SE to NWW–SEE in the depth range of 60–110 km. In the depth range of 30–40 km, a prominent low velocity belt is shown on the southwest of Zhangjiakou-Penglai fault zone (ZPFZ) and the fast direction is subparallel to the strike of the low velocity belt. Distinct lateral variations of azimuthal anisotropy are clearly shown at 110 km. Our results provide new evidence for the existence of upwelling asthenosphere beneath the Datong volcano and support the assumption that ZPFZ may act as the channel of upwelling asthenosphere. Historical strong earthquakes ( M ≥ 6.0) mainly occurred in the transition zone between low and high velocity anomalies in the upper and middle crust. The upwelling asthenosphere may prompt the generation of large earthquake.

Description: Since the emerging of ambient noise tomography (ANT) in 2005, it has become a routine method to image the structures of crust and uppermost mantle because of its exclusive capability to extract short-period surface waves. Most of previous ANT studies focus on surface waves at periods shorter than 40/50 s. There are only a few studies of long-period surface wave tomography from ambient noise (longer than 50 s) in global scale. No tomography studies have been performed using teleseismic long-period surface waves from ambient noise in a regional scale, probably due to the two reasons that (1) energy of long-period ambient noise is weaker and it is harder to retrieve good signal-to-noise ratio long-period surface waves from portable stations with several years of ambient noise data and (2) long-period dispersion measurements from ambient noise may have larger uncertainties than those at shorter periods (〈40/50 s). In this study, I investigate the feasibility of using teleseismic long-period surface waves from ambient noise in regional surface wave tomography and also evaluate the accuracy of long-period dispersion measurements at periods up to 150 s. About 300 USArray/Transportable Array (TA) stations located in the Colorado Plateau and surrounding areas and 400 teleseismic stations relative to the TA stations are selected. Clear, strong, and coherent long-period teleseismic surface waves at periods much longer than 50 s are observed in the teleseismic cross-correlations between the TA stations and the teleseismic stations. Using long-period dispersion curves from ambient noise, I generate phase velocity maps at 50–150 s periods and then compare them with phase velocity maps from teleseismic earthquake data. The results show that phase velocity maps from ambient noise data and earthquake data are similar at the 50–150 s period range, verifying the validity of using long-period surface wave from ambient noise in regional surface wave tomography.

Description: The crust at the junction of Qinling Orogen, Yangtze Craton and NE Tibetan Plateau bears imprints of the Triassic collision and later intracontinental orogeny between the Qinling Orogen and the Yangtze Craton, and the Cenozoic growth of Tibetan Plateau. Investigating detailed crustal structures in this region helps to better understand these tectonic processes. In this study, we construct a 3-D crustal Vs model using seismic ambient noise data recorded at 321 seismic stations. Ambient noise tomography is performed to generate Rayleigh wave phase velocity maps at 8–50 s periods, which are then inverted for a 3-D isotropic Vs model using a Bayesian Monte Carlo method. Our 3-D model reveals deep-rooted high velocities beneath the Hannan-Micang and Shennong-Huangling Domes, which are located on the west and east sides of the Dabashan Orocline. Similar high velocities are observed in the upper/mid crust of the western Qinling Orogen. We suggest the crustal-scale bodies with high velocity beneath the two domes and the western Qinling Orogen may represent mechanically strong rocks, which not only assisted the formation of the major Dabashan Orocline during late Mesozoic intracontinental orogeny, but also have impeded the northeastward expansion of the Tibetan Plateau during the Cenozoic era.

Description: The aim of this paper is to assess the accuracy of the long-period (50–250 s) surface waves extracted from cross-correlation functions (CCF) of ambient noise. First, we compare waveforms of Empirical Green's functions (EGF) converted from CCF with their synthetics, and also compare seismograms from a ground truth earthquake with their synthetics, through numerical simulations using a common 3-D model. We then quantify the accuracy of EGFs by comparing two sets of time-shifts between the observed waveforms and the synthetics: one set for the ground truth earthquake and the other set for EGFs. Second, we compare Rayleigh wave phase velocity dispersion measurements from ambient noise and those from earthquake data in both global and regional studies. Through these comparisons, we conclude that both the dispersion curves and waveforms from noise data are consistent with their counterparts from earthquake data in the long-period band. The long-period surface waves from ambient noise are as accurate as those from earthquake data, and can be included in both global and regional ambient noise tomography and provide complementary data to constrain the lithospheric and asthenospheric structures.

Description: We obtain high-resolution Rayleigh and Love wave phase velocity maps from ambient noise tomography using data recorded by NECESSArray in Northeast China. The resulting radial anisotropic model from the joint inversion of Rayleigh and Love wave dispersion curves reveals strong relationship between the crustal radial anisotropy and tectonic provinces, that is, strong positive anisotropy ( V sh 〉 V sv ) beneath the Songliao Basin and weak radial anisotropy beneath the Xinmeng Belt and Changbaishan Region. The Songliao Basin experienced widespread crustal extension during the late Mesozoic. We interpret the lower crustal anisotropy beneath the Songliao Basin as a result of ductile deformation during the rifting stage, which may lead to the alignment of anisotropic minerals and the observed strong radial anisotropy at present. In the northern Songliao Basin, where thick syn-rift and post-rift sediments (≥4 km) are believed to be present, we observe a broader lateral distribution of anisotropy with stronger amplitude compared with the southern basin. We suggest that the broader distribution of crustal radial anisotropy in the northern basin could be the consequence of outward lower crustal flow driven by the sedimentary loading during the post-rift stage, which is also proposed by previous numerical modeling.

Description: Ambient noise tomography (ANT) has recently become a popular tomography method to study crustal structures thanks to its unique capability to extract short-period surface waves. Empirically, in order to reliably measure surface wave dispersion curves from time-domain cross-correlations, interstation distances between a pair of stations have to be longer than two/three wavelengths. This requirement imposed a strong constraint on the use of ANT at the long-period end at local- and regional-scale tomography studies. In this study, we use ambient noise data from USArray/Transportable Array recorded during 2007–2012 to investigate whether dispersion measurements from cross-correlations of ambient noise at short interstation distances are consistent with those at long distances and whether the short-path dispersion measurements can be used in tomography, especially in local- and regional-scale tomography. Our results show that: (1) surface wave phase velocity dispersion curves measured by a frequency-time analysis technique (FTAN) from time-domain cross-correlations are consistent with those measured by a spectral method tracing the zero crossings of the real part of cross-spectrum functions in frequency domain; (2) dispersion measurements from time-domain cross-correlations with short interstation distances, up to only one wavelength, are consistent with and also reliable as those with interstation distances longer than three wavelengths and (3) these short-path measurements can be included in ANT to improve path coverage and resolution.