Inversion for laterally heterogeneous upper mantle S-wave velocity structure using iterative waveform inversion

In contrast to previous work, which treats the Earth's lateral heterogeneity as an infinitesimal perturbation to a spherically symmetrical starting model, we conduct iterative linearized waveform inversion for the Earth's laterally heterogeneous structure. We use the Direct Solution Method (DSM) (Geller et al. 1990a) to calculate synthetic seismograms and their partial derivatives for a laterally heterogeneous earth model. We invert surface-wave data from the IDA and GEOSCOPE networks. We expand the lateral heterogeneity of rigidity in spherical harmonics up to angular order number 8 and use three parameters to specify the depth dependence of each harmonic, giving us a total of 240 unknowns. The short-wavelength lateral heterogeneity (s = 4, 6 and 8) in the deeper part of the upper mantle obtained by this study differs significantly from M84A. The relative improvement in the variance reduction as compared with model M84A is about 20 per cent for the IDA data and more than 100 per cent for the GEOSCOPE data.     

The Backus–Gilbert approach to the 3-D structure in the upper mantle – II. SH and SV velocity

Summary. Phase velocity variations obtained in the previous paper are inverted by the Backus–Gilbert method for the velocity structure of the upper mantle. Spheroidal modes and toroidal modes in the period range of 125–260 s are used in the inversion. The data cannot constrain all six parameters in a transversely isotropic medium and we chose to perturb only two parameters, SH and SV velocities. SV velocities are resolved between the depths of about 200 and 400 km and SH velocities between 0 and 200 km. Resolution kernels have half-peak widths of about 200–300 km in depth, becoming broader for deeper target depths. SV velocity kernels show secondary peaks near the surface of the Earth, with widths varying from 50 to 100 km. The deeper the target depths, the wider the secondary peaks near the surface. SH velocity kernels do not possess such secondary peaks. The trade-off between SV and SH velocities is small. SV velocity is essentially determined by spheroidal modes and SH velocity by toroidal modes. Because of the broad width of the resolution kernels, the structure in the resolved region is difficult to detect from our data set; for example the differences in SV velocity structure between 250 and 350 km or the differences in SH velocity between 100 and 200 km are difficult to distinguish. Considering the horizontal resolution of about 2000 km, obtained in the previous paper, averaging kernels for 3-D structure are quite elongated in the horizontal dimension.     

A lower mantle S-wave triplication and the shear velocity structure of D"

Summary. A lower mantle S-wave triplication detected with short- and long-period WWSSN and CSN recordings indicates a substantial shear velocity discontinuity near 280 km above the core–mantle boundary. The triplication can be observed in rotated SH seismograms from intermediate and deep focus events throughout the distance range from 70° to 95°. Three distinct source region–receiver array combinations that have been investigated in detail demonstrate consistent travel time and relative amplitude behaviour of the triplication, with slight systematic shifts in the triplication indicating up to 40 km variations in the depth of the discontinuity. Modelling of the observations with synthetic seismograms produced with the Cagniard de Hoop and reflectivity methods constrains the shear velocity increase to be 235 ± 0.25 per cent, comparable to upper mantle discontinuities. Short-period observations indicate that the velocity increase may be a sharp first-order discontinuity, or may extend over a transition zone no more than 50 km thick. The shear velocity gradient below the discontinuity, within the D" layer, is not well-constrained by the SH data, but slightly positive or near zero velocity gradients are consistent with the long-period amplitude ratios of ScSH/SH .