Stepwise joint inversion of surface wave dispersion, Rayleigh wave ZH ratio, and receiver function data for 1D crustal shear wave velocity structure

Abstract

Accurate determination of seismic velocity of the crust is important for understanding regional tectonics and crustal evolution of the Earth. We propose a stepwise joint linearized inversion method using surface wave dispersion, Rayleigh wave ZH ratio (i.e., ellipticity), and receiver function data to better resolve 1D crustal shear wave velocity (vS) structure. Surface wave dispersion and Rayleigh wave ZH ratio data are more sensitive to absolute variations of shear wave speed at depths, but their sensitivity kernels to shear wave speeds are different and complimentary. However, receiver function data are more sensitive to sharp velocity contrast (e.g., due to the existence of crustal interfaces) and vP/vS ratios. The stepwise inversion method takes advantages of the complementary sensitivities of each dataset to better constrain the vS model in the crust. We firstly invert surface wave dispersion and ZH ratio data to obtain a 1D smooth absolute vS model and then incorporate receiver function data in the joint inversion to obtain a finer vS model with better constraints on interface structures. Through synthetic tests, Monte Carlo error analyses, and application to real data, we demonstrate that the proposed joint inversion method can resolve robust crustal vS structures and with little initial model dependency. Show more