Multiple ScS travel times in the western Pacific: Implications for mantle heterogeneity

Abstract

Multiple ScS travel times have been obtained by wave form cross correlation from seismograms digitally recorded by the High Gain Long Period (HGLP) and Seismic Research Observatory (SRO) networks. The surface projections of the paths corresponding to these data cross the western Pacific on oceanic crust greater than 100 m.y. old or traverse continental regions. The difference between the median ScSn‐ScSn−1 residuals for all western Pacific paths and all continental paths is +5.2 s, in agreement with our World Wide Standardized Seismograph Network (WWSSN) data (Sipkin and Jordan, 1976). These results support the hypothesis that the average mantle shear velocity of old ocean basins is significantly less than that of old continental nuclei. The medians of both the oceanic and continental residuals for the HGLP and SRO data are more positive than those for the higher‐frequency WWSSN data by amounts consistent with attenuative dispersion, which we take to be direct evidence for such dispersion. The residuals for paths crossing China have a median 2 s greater than the median for all continental paths, supporting the inference from dispersion studies that the upper mantle beneath China is characterized by anomalously low shear velocities. The residuals for western Pacific paths show lateral variations of 5 s or more not correlated in any systematic way with crustal ages along the paths. An analysis of these variations suggests that for horizontal scale lengths of the order of 103 km the amplitude of lateral variability is greater along a SW‐NE axis than along a SE‐NW axis. Mesoscale heterogeneity in the western Pacific may thus consist of predominantly NW trending structures.