Ambient Noise Tomography of the British Isles
Abstract
In recent years, surface wave tomography using empirical Green’s functions computed via the ambient noise interferometry method has become an established approach to lithospheric imaging problems. To date, ambient noise tomography has been successfully applied to seismometer arrays in the United States, Australia, Iceland, China, South Africa, Europe and the Tibetan Plateau. The basis of the ambient seismic interferometry method is that, by cross-correlating noise data between two seismic stations and stacking over a long enough time period, one can approximate the Green’s Function that would have been recorded at one of the stations if the other had actually been a source. Consequently, one of the main advantages of ambient noise interferometry is that traditional seismic sources such as earthquakes or ballistics are not required; therefore it is ideal for application to seismically quiescent areas such as the British Isles. The British Isles are an archipelago located adjacent to the Eurasian continental shelf in a typically intra-plate setting, formed by a complex amalgamation of several terranes. These range from Laurentian north of the Highland Boundary fault to Avalonian south of the Iapetus Suture and evidence of the regions turbulent geological past can be inferred from its lithospheric structure. Previous studies of the structure of the British Isles considered relatively few seismic stations and/or were limited to using offshore shots, quarry blasts or teleseismic earthquakes as seismic energy sources. We have applied the ambient noise tomography method to noise data recorded on approximately 100 broadband and short period seismometers, including many new stations, in the British Isles and mainland Europe. This dense coverage of the British Isles allows us to image the crust and upper mantle velocity structure with a horizontal resolution in the region of 100km across the North Sea and 30km in the mainland United Kingdom. Here we present the first Rayleigh and Love velocity maps of the British Isles from ambient noise tomography.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2009
- Bibcode:
- 2009AGUFM.T51B1517N
- Keywords:
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- 7218 SEISMOLOGY / Lithosphere;
- 7255 SEISMOLOGY / Surface waves and free oscillations;
- 7270 SEISMOLOGY / Tomography