A new approach for inversion of receiver function for crustal structure in the depth domain

Abstract

A method for reconstructing crustal velocity structure using the optimization of stacking receiver function amplitude in the depth domain, named common conversion amplitude (CCA) inversion, is presented. The conversion amplitude in the depth domain, which represents the impedance change in the medium, is obtained by assigning the receiver function amplitude to the corresponding conversion position where the P-to-S conversion occurred. Utilizing the conversion amplitude variation with depth as an optimization objective, imposing reliable prior constraints on the structural model frame and velocity range, and adopting a stepwise search inversion technique, this method efficiently weakens the tendency of easily falling into the local extremum in conventional receiver function inversion. Synthetic tests show that the CCA inversion can reconstruct complex crustal velocity structures well and is especially suitable for revealing crustal evolution by estimating diverse velocity distributions. Its performance in reconstructing crustal structure is superior to that of the conventional receiver function imaging method.