ALBERT

Description: We present a new 3-D traveltime tomography code (TOMO3D) for the modelling of active-source seismic data that uses the arrival times of both refracted and reflected seismic phases to derive the velocity distribution and the geometry of reflecting boundaries in the subsurface. This code is based on its popular 2-D version TOMO2D from which it inherited the methods to solve the forward and inverse problems. The traveltime calculations are done using a hybrid ray-tracing technique combining the graph and bending methods. The LSQR algorithm is used to perform the iterative regularized inversion to improve the initial velocity and depth models. In order to cope with an increased computational demand due to the incorporation of the third dimension, the forward problem solver, which takes most of the run time (~90 per cent in the test presented here), has been parallelized with a combination of multi-processing and message passing interface standards. This parallelization distributes the ray-tracing and traveltime calculations among available computational resources. The code's performance is illustrated with a realistic synthetic example, including a checkerboard anomaly and two reflectors, which simulates the geometry of a subduction zone. The code is designed to invert for a single reflector at a time. A data-driven layer-stripping strategy is proposed for cases involving multiple reflectors, and it is tested for the successive inversion of the two reflectors. Layers are bound by consecutive reflectors, and an initial velocity model for each inversion step incorporates the results from previous steps. This strategy poses simpler inversion problems at each step, allowing the recovery of strong velocity discontinuities that would otherwise be smoothened.

Description: Extension of the continental lithosphere leads to the formation of rift basins and ultimately may create passive continental margins. The mechanisms that operate during the early-stage of crustal extension are still intensely debated. We present the results from coincident multichannel seismic and wide-angle seismic profiles that transect across the northern Tyrrhenian Sea basin. The profiles cross the Corsica Basin (France) to the Latium Margin (Italy) where the early-rift stage of the basin is well preserved. We found two domains, each with a distinct tectonic style, heat-flow and crustal thickness. One domain is the Corsica Basin in the west that formed before the main rift-phase of the northern Tyrrhenian Sea opening (~8-4 Ma). The second domain is rifted continental crust characterized by tilted blocks and half-graben structures in the central region and at the Latium Margin. These two domains are separated by a deep (~10 km) sedimentary complex of the eastern portion of the Corsica Basin. Travel-time tomography of wide-angle seismic data reveals the crustal architecture and a sub-horizontal 15-17 ± 1 km deep Moho discontinuity under the basin. To estimate the amount of horizontal extension we have identified the pre-, syn-, and post-tectonic sedimentary units and calculated the relative displacement of faults. We found that major faults initiated at angles of 45-50° and that the rifted domain is horizontally stretched by a factor of β=1.3 (~8-10 mm/a). The crust has been thinned from ~24 to 17 km indicating a similar amount of extension (~30%). The transect represents one of the best imaged early-rifts and implies that the formation of crustal-scale detachments, or long-lived low-angle normal faults, is not a general feature that controls the rift initiation of continental crust. Other young rift basins, like the Gulf of Corinth, the Suez-Rift or Lake Baikal, display features resembling the northern Tyrrhenian Basin, suggesting that half graben formations and distributed homogeneous crustal thinning are a common feature during rift initiation.

Description: We present a scale- and parameter-adaptive method to pre-condition the gradient of the parameters to be inverted in time-domain 2-D elastic full-waveform inversion (FWI). The proposed technique, which relies on a change of variables of the model parameters, allows to balance the value of the gradient of the Lamé parameters and density throughout the model in each step of the multiscale inversion. The main difference compared to existing gradient pre-conditioners is that the variables are automatically selected based on a least-squares minimization criteria of the gradient weight, which corresponds to the product of the gradient by a power of the parameter to be inverted. Based on numerical tests made with (1) a modified version of the Marmousi-2 model, and (2) a high-velocity and density local anomaly model, we illustrate that the value of the power helps to balance the gradient throughout the model. In addition, we show that a particular value exists for each parameter that optimizes the inversion results in terms of accuracy and efficiency. For the two models, the optimal power is ~2.0–2.5 and ~1.5 for the first and second Lamé parameters, respectively; and between 3 and 6, depending on the inverted frequency, for density. These power values provide the fastest and most accurate inversion results for the three parameters in the framework of multiscale and multishooting FWI using three different optimization schemes.

Description: Water layer multiple seismic phases are recorded at ocean bottom seismometers and hydrophones as arrivals that correspond to the reflection of the primary phases at the sea–free air interface. In regions of low to moderate seabed relief, the shape of these phases mimics that of the primary phases with a traveltime delay that depends on the water layer thickness at the receiver location. Given their longer travel paths, multiple phases should have smaller amplitudes than their corresponding primary phases. However, depending on the geological context it can be relatively common to observe the opposite, which results in the identification of the multiple phases at longer offsets than the primary events. In this paper, we examine the origin of this apparently paradoxical phenomenon by analysing the combined effect of the major factors potentially involved: the source frequency content, the subsurface velocity distribution, the receiver–seafloor distance, the geometrical spreading and attenuation of sound waves and the ambient noise level. We use synthetic modelling to show that for certain combinations of these factors, the interference between the multiple and its reflection at the seafloor is constructive and has a higher amplitude than the primary wave. Our analysis indicates that in the most favourable cases the phases resulting from this interference can be observed at offsets some tens of kilometres longer than their corresponding primary phases, and thus they can provide useful information for velocity modelling.

Description: ABSTRACT [1]  In this work we investigate the crustal and tectonic structure of the Central Tyrrhenian back-arc basin combining refraction and wide-angle reflection seismic (WAS), gravity and multichannel seismic reflection (MCS) data, acquired during the MEDOC-2010 survey along a transect crossing the entire basin from Sardinia to Campania at 40ºN. The results presented include a ~450 km-long 2D P-wave velocity model, obtained by the travel-time inversion of the WAS data, a coincident density model, and a MCS post-stack time-migrated profile. We interpret three basement domains with different petrological affinity along the transect based on the comparison of velocity and velocity-derived density models with existing compilations for continental crust, oceanic crust and exhumed mantle. The first domain includes the continental crust of Sardinia and the conjugate Campania margin. In the Sardinia margin extension has thinned the crust from ~20 km under the coastline to ~13 km ~60 km seawards. Similarly, the Campania margin is also affected by strong extensional deformation. The second domain, under the Cornaglia Terrace and its conjugate Campania Terrace, appears to be oceanic in nature. However, it shows differences with respect to the reference Atlantic oceanic crust and agrees with that generated in back-arc oceanic settings. The velocities-depth relationships and lack of Moho reflections in seismic records of the third domain (i.e. the Magnaghi and Vavilov basins) support a basement fundamentally made of mantle rocks. The large seamounts of the third domain (e.g. Vavilov) are underlain by 10-20-km-wide, relatively-low-velocity anomalies interpreted as magmatic bodies locally intruding the mantle.

Description: Geophysical data from the MEDOC experiment across the Northern Tyrrhenian backarc basin has mapped a failed rift during backarc extension of cratonic Variscan lithosphere. In contrast, data across the Central Tyrrhenian have revealed the presence of magmatic accretion followed by mantle exhumation after continental breakup. Here we analyse the MEDOC transect E–F, which extends from Sardinia to the Campania margin at 40.5°N, to define the distribution of geological domains in the transition from the complex Central Tyrrhenian to the extended continental crust of the Northern Tyrrhenian. The crust and uppermost mantle structure along this ~400-km-long transect have been investigated based on wide-angle seismic data, gravity modelling and multichannel seismic reflection imaging. The P -wave tomographic model together with a P -wave-velocity-derived density model and the multichannel seismic images reveal seven different domains along this transect, in contrast to the simpler structure to the south and north. The stretched continental crust under Sardinia margin abuts the magmatic crust of Cornaglia Terrace, where accretion likely occurred during backarc extension. Eastwards, around Secchi seamount, a second segment of thinned continental crust (7–8 km) is observed. Two short segments of magmatically modified continental crust are separated by the ~5-km-wide segment of the Vavilov basin possibly made of exhumed mantle rocks. The eastern segment of the 40.5°N transect E–F is characterized by continental crust extending from mainland Italy towards the Campania margin. Ground truthing and prior geophysical information obtained north and south of transect E–F was integrated in this study to map the spatial distribution of basement domains in the Central Tyrrhenian basin. The northward transition of crustal domains depicts a complex 3-D structure represented by abrupt spatial changes of magmatic and non-magmatic crustal domains. These observations imply rapid variations of magmatic activity difficult to reconcile with current models of extension of continental lithosphere essentially 2-D over long distances.

Description: Ongoing works on full waveform inversion (FWI) are yielding an increasing number of objective functions as alternative to the traditional L2-waveform. These studies aim at designing more robust functions and inversion strategies to reduce the intrinsic dependence of the FWI results on (1) the initial model and (2) the lowest frequency present in field data. In this work, we perform a comparative study of five objective functions in time domain under a common 2-D-acoustic FWI scheme using the Marmousi model as benchmark. In particular, we compare results obtained with L2-based functions that consider the minimization of different wave attributes; the waveform-based, non-integration-method; instantaneous envelope; a modified version of the wrapped instantaneous phase and an improved version of the cross-correlation travel time (CCTT) method; and hybrid strategies combining some of them. We evaluate the robustness of these functionals as a function of their performance with and without low frequencies in the data and the presence of random white Gaussian noise. Our results reveal promising strategies to invert noisy data with limited low-frequency content (≥4 Hz), which is the single strategy using the instantaneous phase objective function followed by the hybrid strategies using the instantaneous phase or CCTT as initial models, in particular the combinations [I. Phase + Waveform], [CCTT + Waveform] and [CCTT + I. Phase].