Joint inversion of body-wave receiver function and rayleigh-wave ellipticity

Jiajun Chong, Sidao Ni, Risheng Chu, Paul Somerville

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

23 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

In recent years, surface-wave dispersion has been used to image lithospheric structure jointly with receiver function or Rayleigh-wave ellipticity. Because surface-wave dispersion is the total propagation effect of the travel path, the joint inversion relies on dense seismic arrays or high seismicity to obtain local velocity structure. However, both receiver function and Rayleigh-wave ellipticity are singlestation measurements with localized sensitivities and could be combined for joint inversion naturally. In this article, we explored the feasibility of the joint inversion of Rayleigh-wave ellipticity and receiver function. We performed sensitivity tests with forward modeling and found that the receiver function is sensitive to sharp velocity interfaces but shows weak sensitivity to long-wavelength structure, almost complementary to Rayleigh-wave ellipticity. Therefore, joint inversion with two singlestation measurements provides tighter constraints on the velocity structure beneath the seismic station. A joint inversion algorithm based on the fast simulated-annealing method is developed to invert Rayleigh-wave ellipticity and receiver function for the lithospheric structure. Application of the algorithm to the Indian craton and theWilliston basin in the United States demonstrates its effectiveness in reducing the nonuniqueness of the inversion. However, the joint inversion may fail to resolve the average crustal velocity, suggesting the need to combine surface-wave dispersion (or other type of observations), receiver function, and Rayleigh-wave ellipticity to more accurately resolve the velocity structure.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)537-551
Number of pages15
JournalBulletin of the Seismological Society of America
Volume106
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Apr 2016
Externally publishedYes

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