Open AccessA Procedure For the Systematic Interpretation of Body Wave Seismograms‐I. Application to Moho Depth and Crustal Properties
Author(s) -
Clarke Timothy J.,
Silver Paul G.
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
geophysical journal international
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.302
H-Index - 168
eISSN - 1365-246X
pISSN - 0956-540X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-246x.1991.tb02493.x
Subject(s) - seismogram , geology , seismology , interpretation (philosophy) , synthetic seismogram , set (abstract data type) , geophysics , energy (signal processing) , geodesy , mathematics , computer science , statistics , programming language
SUMMARY Teleseismic body waves represent a natural tool for the investigation of Earth structure, but most studies have used only a very small part of the available information. We present a general procedure for the interpretation of body wave seismograms, which allows us to incorporate information from the entire set of body wave arrivals, and which is based on a new method for the calculation of synthetic seismograms. These ‘Complete Ordered Ray Expansion’ (CORE) seismograms are both complete, in the sense of incorporating all significant energy contributions, and interpretable, in the sense that we can identify all such contributions explicitly. We show how our procedure can form the basis for a waveform inversion scheme, exploiting the natural division of body wave arrivals into main phases associated with smooth structure, and families of interaction phases associated with discontinuities. We present the results of applying this technique to the Moho beneath various RSTN and DWWSSN stations, showing that it is possible to obtain very consistent values of crustal thickness from single deep focus events, using phases associated with both the P and S arrivals. By incorporating such arrivals in a linearized waveform inversion, we also obtain estimates of a mean Poisson's ratio for the crust.