3-D crustal and uppermost mantle structure beneath NE China revealed by ambient noise adjoint tomography

Abstract

We construct a new 3-D shear wave speed model of the crust and the uppermost mantle beneath Northeast China using the ambient noise adjoint tomography method. Without intermediate steps of measuring phase dispersion, the adjoint tomography inverts for shear wave speeds of the crust and uppermost mantle directly from 6–40 s waveforms of Empirical Green's functions (EGFs) of Rayleigh waves, which are derived from interferometry of two years of ambient noise data recorded by the 127 Northeast China Extended Seismic Array stations. With an initial 3-D model derived from traditional asymptotic surface wave tomography method, adjoint tomography refines the 3-D model by iteratively minimizing the frequency-dependent traveltime misfits between EGFs and synthetic Green's functions measured in four period bands: 6–15 s, 10–20 s, 15–30 s, and 20–40 s. Our new model shows shear wave speed anomalies that are spatially correlated with known tectonic units such as the Great Xing'an range and the Changbaishan mountain range. The new model also reveals low wave speed conduits in the mid-lower crust and the uppermost mantle with a wave speed reduction indicative of partial melting beneath the Halaha, Xilinhot–Abaga, and Jingpohu volcanic complexes, suggesting that the Cenozoic volcanism in the area has a deep origin. Overall, the adjoint tomographic images show more vertically continuous velocity anomalies with larger amplitudes due to the consideration of the finite frequency and 3-D effects.