Surface wave tomography on a large-scale seismic array combining ambient noise and teleseismic earthquake data

Abstract

We discuss two array-based tomography methods, ambient noise tomography (ANT) and two-planewave earthquake tomography (TPWT), which are capable of taking advantage of emerging large-scale broadband seismic arrays to generate high resolution phase velocity maps, but in complementary period band: ANT at 8–40 s and TPWT at 25–100 s period. Combining these two methods generates surface wave dispersion maps from 8 to 100 s periods, which can be used to construct a 3D vS model from the surface to ∼200 km depth. As an illustration, we apply the two methods to the USArray/Transportable Array. We process seismic noise data from over 1 500 stations obtained from 2005 through 2009 to produce Rayleigh wave phase velocity maps from 8 to 40 s period, and also perform TPWT using ∼450 teleseismic earthquakes to obtain phase velocity maps between 25 and 100 s period. Combining dispersion maps from ANT and TPWT, we construct a 3D vS model from the surface to a depth of 160 km in the western and central USA. These surface wave tomography methods can also be applied to other rapidly growing seismic networks such as those in China.