Articles

Surface wave phase velocities of the Western United States from a two-station method

Foster, Anna; Ekström, Göran; Nettles, Meredith K.

We calculate two-station phase measurements using single-station measurements made on USArray Transportable Array data for surface waves at periods from 25 to 100 s. The phase measurements are inverted for baseline Love and Rayleigh wave phase velocity maps on a 0.5° × 0.5° grid. We make estimates of the arrival angle for each event at each station using a mini array method similar to beamforming, and apply this information to correct the geometry of the two-station measurements. These corrected measurements are inverted for an additional set of phase velocity maps. Arrival angles range from 0° to ±15°, and the associated corrections result in local changes of up to 4 per cent in the final phase velocity maps. We select our preferred models on the basis of the internal consistency of the measurements, finding that the arrival-angle corrections improve the two-station phase measurements, but that Love wave arrival-angle estimates may be contaminated by overtone interference. Our preferred models compare favourably with recent studies of the phase velocity of the Western United States. The corrected Rayleigh wave models achieve greater variance reduction than the baseline Rayleigh wave models, and the baseline Love wave models, which are more difficult to obtain, are robust and could be used in conjunction with the Rayleigh wave models to constrain radially anisotropic earth structure.

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Title
Geophysical Journal International
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1093/gji/ggt454

More About This Work

Academic Units
Earth and Environmental Sciences
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Published Here
March 13, 2014

Notes

Uses data gathered on USArray