Three-dimensional seismic structure beneath the Australasian region from refracted wave observations

Abstract

The earthquakes in the seismicity belt extending through Indonesia, New Guinea, Vanuatu and Fiji to the Tonga-Kermadec subduction zone recorded at the 65 portable broad-band stations deployed during the Skippy experiment from 1993-1996 provide good coverage of the lithosphere and mantle under the Australian continent, Coral Sea and Tasman Sea. The variation in structure in the upper part of the mantle is characterized by deter-mining a suite of 1-D structures from stacked record sections utilizing clear P and S arrivals, prepared for all propagation paths lying within a 10° azimuth band. The azimuth of these bands is rotated by 20° steps with four parallel corridors for each azimuth. This gives 26 separate azimuthal corridors for which 15 independent 1-D seismic velocity structures have been derived, which show significant variation in P and S structure. The set of 1-D structures is combined to produce a 3-D representation by projecting the velocity values along the ray path using a turning point approximation and stacking into 3-D cells (5° by 50 km in depth). Even though this procedure will tend to underestimate wave-speed perturbations, S-velocity deviations from the ak135 reference model exceed 6 per cent in the lithosphere. In the uppermost mantle the results display complex features and very high S-wave speeds beneath the Precambrian shields with a significant low-velocity zone beneath. High velocities are also found towards the base of the transition zone, with highS-wave speeds beneath the continent and high P-wave speeds beneath the ocean. The wave-speed patterns agree well with independent surface wave studies and delay time tomography studies in the zones of common coverage.