Determination of the seismic structure of the Earth based on joint analysis of gravimetric and seismometric data – a case study

Abstract

The evolution of the Earth’s surface is driven by external and internal forces, the latter of which can only be studied indirectly. Knowledge about the structure of the Earth’s interior is very important for modeling and predicting the processes occurring at the surface. This study presents a new concept of joint analysis of the gravimetric and seismometric recordings of earthquakes for determining the seismic structure of the Earth down to the depth of 1250 km. The proposed method allows the use of gravimetric data without the known full transfer function of the instrument. Group velocity dispersion curves of the fundamental mode of Rayleigh waves up to the period of 550 s are measured based on the joint analysis of the recordings of superconducting gravimeter and broadband seismometers operating at the same location in five testing sites in Europe, allowing for the exploration of a broader response for incoming seismic waves. Averaged dispersion curves for earthquakes around the world for each site are inverted by the weighted linear inversion and Monte Carlo methods to estimate the distribution of shear-wave seismic velocity in the Earth’s mantle. A comparison of the deterministic and probabilistic inversion methods can excellently demonstrate surface waves’ ability to determine the Earth’s mantle structure. The inversion results are compared with the global ak135 seismic model (Kennett et al. 1995) to verify the proposed method.