Nicholas Rawlinson

Transdimensional inversion of receiver functions and surface wave dispersion

[1] We present a novel method for joint inversion of receiver functions and surface wave dispersion data, using a transdimensional Bayesian formulation. This class of algorithm treats the number of model parameters (e.g. number of layers) as an unknown in the problem. The dimension of the model space is variable and a Markov chain Monte Carlo (McMC) scheme is used to provide a parsimonious solution that fully quantifies the degree of knowledge one has about seismic structure (i.e constraints on the model, resolution, and trade-offs). The level of data noise (i.e. the covariance matrix of data errors) effectively controls the information recoverable from the data and here it naturally determines the complexity of the model (i.e. the number of model parameters). However, it is often difficult to quantify the data noise appropriately, particularly in the case of seismic waveform inversion where data errors are correlated. Here we address the issue of noise estimation using an extended Hierarchical Bayesian formulation, which allows both the variance and covariance of data noise to be treated as unknowns in the inversion. In this way it is possible to let the data infer the appropriate level of data fit. In the context of joint inversions, assessment of uncertainty for different data types becomes crucial in the evaluation of the misfit function. We show that the Hierarchical Bayes procedure is a powerful tool in this situation, because it is able to evaluate the level of information brought by different data types in the misfit, thus removing the arbitrary choice of weighting factors. After illustrating the method with synthetic tests, a real data application is shown where teleseismic receiver functions and ambient noise surface wave dispersion measurements from the WOMBAT array (South-East Australia) are jointly inverted to provide a probabilistic 1D model of shear-wave velocity beneath a given station.

Multiple reflection and transmission phases in complex layered media using a multistage fast marching method

Traditional grid-based eikonal schemes for computing traveltimes are usually confined to obtaining first arrivals only. However, later arrivals can be numerous and of greater amplitude, making them a potentially valuable resource for practical applications such as seismic imaging. The aim of this paper is to introduce a grid-based method for tracking multivalued wavefronts composed of any number of reflection and refraction branches in layered media. A finite-difference eikonal solver known as the fast marching method (FMM) is used to propagate wavefronts from one interface to the next. By treating each layer that the wavefront enters as a separate computational domain, one obtains a refracted branch by reinitializing FMM in the adjacent layer and a reflected branch by reinitializing FMM in the incident layer. To improve accuracy, a local grid refinement scheme is used in the vicinity of the source where wavefront curvature is high. Several examples are presented which demonstrate the viability of the new method in highly complex layered media. Even in the presence of velocity variations as large as 8:1 and interfaces of high curvature, wavefronts composed of many reflection and transmission events are tracked rapidly and accurately. This is because the scheme retains the two desirable properties of a single-stage FMM: computational speed and stability. Local grid refinement about the source also can increase accuracy by an order of magnitude with little increase in computational cost.

Lithospheric structure of Tasmania from a novel form of teleseismic tomography

In 2001 and 2002, a temporary array of 72 seismic recorders was deployed across northern Tasmania (SE Australia), with the aim of imaging the underlying crust and upper mantle using three-dimensional (3-D) teleseismic tomography. Using a recently developed adaptive stacking technique, 6520 relative P wave arrival time residuals have been picked from 101 distant earthquake records spanning a 5 month period. A novel iterative nonlinear tomographic procedure based on a subspace inversion scheme and the fast marching method, a grid-based eikonal solver, is used to map the residual patterns as P wave velocity anomalies. The new scheme proves to be both fast and robust, making it well suited to large data sets and the reconstruction of complex anomalies. The resultant tomographic images of Tasmania exhibit significant lateral perturbations in P wave velocity structure (5%) from a 1-D reference model. A marked transition from higher velocities in the east to lower velocities in the west strongly supports the idea that eastern Tasmania is underlain by dense rocks with an oceanic crustal affinity, contrasting with the continentally derived siliciclastic core of western Tasmania. Significantly, the Tamar Fracture System does not overlie the narrow transition from relatively fast to slow velocities, which suggests that it may be a near-surface feature rather than a manifestation of deeper crustal-scale suturing as previously thought. Farther west, an easterly dipping zone of relatively high velocity material beneath the Rocky Cape Group and Arthur Lineament may be related to remnant subduction of oceanic lithosphere associated with the mid-Cambrian Delamerian Orogeny.

3-D structure of the Australian lithosphere from evolving seismic datasets

During the last 20 years, seismic tomography has frequently been used to provide information on the structure of the lithosphere beneath the Australian continent. New tomographic models are presented using two complementary seismological techniques in order to illustrate the current state-of-knowledge. Surface wave tomography is the ideal method to obtain information of velocity variations across the whole continent. The latest models use data from over 13 000 source–receiver paths, allowing a higher resolution than in previous studies using the same technique. In Western Australia the results at 100 km depth clearly reveal the contrast in structure between the Pilbara and Yilgarn Cratons and the Capricorn Orogen. At greater depths, the Kimberley Block has a distinct fast velocity anomaly in comparison with the surrounding mobile belts. In the east of the continent, strong horizontal gradients in velocity indicate transitions in lithospheric structure, although the new high resolution models reveal a complexity in the transitions through central Victoria and New South Wales. Complementing the surface wave tomography, we also present the results from the inversion of over 25 000 relative arrival times from body wave phases recorded in southeast Australia and Tasmania. The body wave tomography uses the surface wave model to provide information on long-wavelength structure and absolute velocities that would otherwise be lost. The new results indicate a distinct boundary between the Delamerian and Lachlan orogens within the upper mantle, the location of which is consistent with an east-dipping Moyston Fault, as observed by deep seismic reflection profiling. The new models also confirm a distinct region of fast velocities beneath the central sub province of the Lachlan Orogen. A significant new observation is that the inferred eastern edge of this central sub-province has a strong correlation with the location of copper/gold deposits; a similar relationship is observed at a larger scale in Western Australia where mineral deposits appear to flank the regions of fastest velocity within the West Australian Craton.

Contrasts in mantle structure beneath Australia: Relation to Tasman Lines?

Surface‐wave tomography for the Australian region, using data mostly from portable seismic recorders, reveals a very strong contrast in seismic shear‐wave speed beneath central and western Australia and the east of the continent. Shear‐wave speeds faster than the continental average extend to at least 200 km depth in the cratonic zone to the west of 140°E. Along an approximately north‐south line there is then an eastward step to thinner lithosphere (∼150 km thick) but still with fast shear‐wave speeds. A further more irregular transition to the east marks the transition to lowered shear‐wave speeds. The eastern transition at 75 km depth is in close agreement with the original Tasman Line, whereas the two more westerly transitions do not bear a simple relation to the more recent group of Tasman Lines defined from crustal information (outcrop and inferred geophysical trends). The westward transition to the thickest coherent lithosphere (near 140°E) may well mark the edge of the ancient core of the continent, but the current mantle structures must bear the scars of the breakups and reassembly that have created the current Australian continent.

On the origin of recent intraplate volcanism in Australia

Many intraplate volcanic provinces do not appear to originate from plate-boundary processes or upwelling mantle plumes. Edge-driven convection (EDC), where a small-scale convective instability (induced by local variations in lithospheric thickness) displaces hot mantle material upward, provides an alternative hypothesis for such volcanism. Recently, EDC has been postulated as the trigger for Quaternary intraplate volcanism in Australia, due to the proximity of a craton edge. However, the Precambrian shield region of the Australian continent has a boundary that is at least 10,000 km long, yet the Newer Volcanics Province (NVP) is contained within a 400 × 100 km region. This brings into question EDC as a causal mechanism, unless nucleation at a single location can be explained. Here, we use a combination of seismic tomography and geodynamic modeling to show, for the first time, that (1) the source of the NVP is restricted to the upper mantle, and (2) mantle upwelling triggered by EDC is localized and intensified beneath the NVP as a result of three-dimensional variations in lithospheric thickness and plate motion–induced shear flow. This study helps to solve the global puzzle of why step changes in lithospheric thickness, which occur along craton edges and at passive margins, produce volcanism only at isolated locations.

Lithospheric controls on magma composition along Earth's longest continental hotspot track.

Hotspots are anomalous regions of volcanism at Earth’s surface that show no obvious association with tectonic plate boundaries. Classic examples include the Hawaiian–Emperor chain and the Yellowstone–Snake River Plain province. The majority are believed to form as Earth’s tectonic plates move over long-lived mantle plumes: buoyant upwellings that bring hot material from Earth’s deep mantle to its surface. It has long been recognized that lithospheric thickness limits the rise height of plumes and, thereby, their minimum melting pressure. It should, therefore, have a controlling influence on the geochemistry of plume-related magmas, although unambiguous evidence of this has, so far, been lacking. Here we integrate observational constraints from surface geology, geochronology, plate-motion reconstructions, geochemistry and seismology to ascertain plume melting depths beneath Earth’s longest continental hotspot track, a 2,000-kilometre-long track in eastern Australia that displays a record of volcanic activity between 33 and 9 million years ago, which we call the Cosgrove track. Our analyses highlight a strong correlation between lithospheric thickness and magma composition along this track, with: (1) standard basaltic compositions in regions where lithospheric thickness is less than 110 kilometres; (2) volcanic gaps in regions where lithospheric thickness exceeds 150 kilometres; and (3) low-volume, leucitite-bearing volcanism in regions of intermediate lithospheric thickness. Trace-element concentrations from samples along this track support the notion that these compositional variations result from different degrees of partial melting, which is controlled by the thickness of overlying lithosphere. Our results place the first observational constraints on the sub-continental melting depth of mantle plumes and provide direct evidence that lithospheric thickness has a dominant influence on the volume and chemical composition of plume-derived magmas.

Seismic Ray Tracing and Wavefront Tracking in Laterally Heterogeneous Media

Publisher Summary This chapter describes a variety of schemes for tracking the kinematic evolution of high frequency seismic waves in heterogeneous 2-D and 3-D structures. Where possible, the chapter has focused on methods that have been used in practical applications; most of these can be characterized as either ray based or grid based. Ray tracing has traditionally been the method of choice in many seismic applications due to its high accuracy and potential for computational efficiency. Common ray tracing schemes include shooting, bending and pseudo bending. Shooting methods formulate the kinematic ray equation as an initial value problem, which allows a complete ray path to be computed given an initial projection vector. The boundary value problem of locating source-receiver trajectories is typically solved using iterative non-linear strategies, which exploit information from nearby paths to update the projection parameters and better target the receiver. Bending methods perturb the geometry of an initial path joining source and receiver, until it becomes a true (stationary) path, by iteratively solving a boundary value formulation of the ray equations. Pseudo-bending schemes usually represent a path as a series of points, which are perturbed using a simple algorithm based directly on Fermats principle of stationary time. In practice, the most appropriate scheme for predicting an observational dataset depends on a number of factors including computational efficiency, accuracy, robustness and the type of information that is required.

Insights into the structure of the upper mantle beneath the Murray Basin from 3D teleseismic tomography

Distant earthquake records from a passive array of 20 short-period seismometers are used to image the 3D P-wave velocity structure of the upper mantle beneath the Murray Basin in southern New South Wales and northern Victoria. During the five-month deployment period of the array, 158 teleseisms with good signal-to-noise ratios were recorded, allowing 3085 relative arrival time residuals to be picked with high accuracy. These arrival time residuals are mapped as 3D perturbations in P-wave velocity with respect to the ak135 global reference model using teleseismic tomography. The resulting images exhibit lateral variations in wave speed in the upper mantle to depths of nearly 300 km, and help to reveal the deep structure beneath a region almost devoid of Palaeozoic outcrop. Of particular significance is an east – west high – low – high relative wave speed variation that is present throughout the upper mantle between 70 and 250 km depth. The transition from faster to slower wave speeds in the west is indicative of a change from Proterozoic to Phanerozoic lithosphere that has also been observed further south in a previous teleseismic study. The transition from slower to faster wave speeds in the east has a less obvious association, but may well signal an underlying change in lithospheric structure related to the convergence of the western and central Lachlan subprovinces. At shallower depths (<70 km), the structural pattern is dominated by a fast perturbation (>3.5%) which overlies the slower region across the northern margin of the Bendigo Zone, and may be a consequence of localised thrusting and emplacement of denser lithosphere during the Early – Middle Devonian Tabberabberan Orogeny.

Structure of the Tasmanian lithosphere from 3D seismic tomography

Seismic data from three separate experiments, a marine active source survey with land-based stations, and two teleseismic arrays deployed to record distant earthquakes, are combined in a joint inversion for the 3D seismic structure of the Tasmanian lithosphere. In total, travel-time information from nearly 14 000 source–receiver paths are used to constrain a detailed model of crustal velocity, Moho geometry and upper mantle velocity beneath the entire island. Synthetic reconstruction tests show good resolution beneath most of Tasmania with the exception of the southwest, where data coverage is sparse. The final model exhibits a number of well-constrained features that have important ramifications for the interpretation of Tasmanian tectonic history. The most prominent of these is a marked easterly transition from lower velocity crust to higher velocity crust which extends from the north coast, northeast of the Tamar River, down to the east coast. Other significant anomalies include elevated crustal velocities beneath the Mt Read Volcanics and Forth Metamorphic Complex; thickened crust beneath the Port Sorell and Badger Head Blocks in central northern Tasmania; and distinctly thinner, higher velocity crust beneath the Rocky Cape Block in northwest Tasmania. Combined with existing evidence from field mapping, potential-field surveys and geochemical data, the new results support the contention that east and west Tasmania were once passively joined as far back as the Ordovician, with the transition from lithosphere of Proterozoic continental origin to Phanerozoic oceanic origin occurring some 50 km east of the Tamar River; that the southeast margin of the Rocky Cape Block may have been a former site of subduction in the Cambrian; and that the Badger Head and Port Sorell Blocks were considerably shortened and thickened during the Cambrian Tyennan and Middle Devonian Tabberabberan Orogenies.