Towards Multi-resolution Adjoint Tomography of the European Crust and Upper Mantle
Abstract
Thanks to continuously improved instrument coverage, and the growth of high-performance computational infrastructure, it is now possible to enhance the resolution at which seismologists image the Earth's interior. While most algorithms in global seismic tomography today are grounded on the ray-theory approximation, however, resolution and model complexity can effectively be enhanced only through the application of more advanced techniques accounting for the many complexities of the partial derivatives relating seismic data and Earth structure. These include full-wave forward modelling methods and adjoint algorithms, which together set a framework for iterative, nonlinear inversion upon complex 3D structures. We take advantage of these methodological improvements using a newly developed, flexible spectral-element method (SPECFEM3D) with embedded adjoint capabilities to devise new tomographic models of the European crust and upper mantle. We chose a two-scale strategy, in which we use global surface wave data to first constrain the large-scale structures, and simultaneously invert for high-resolution, regional structures based on measurements of ambient noise in central and southern Europe. By its very nature, and as a result of the dense station coverage over the continent, the ambient-noise method affords us a particularly uniform seismic coverage. To define surface-wave sensitivity kernels, we construct a flexible, global mesh of the upper mantle only (i.e., a spherical shell) honoring all global discontinuities, and include 3D starting models down to periods of 30 seconds. The noise data are cross-correlated to obtain station-to-station Green's functions. We will present examples of sensitivity kernels computed for these noise-based Green's functions and discuss the data-specific validity of the underlying assumptions to extract Green's functions. The local setup, which is constructed using the same software as in the global case, needs to honor internal and external topography and is based upon a refined 3D starting model.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2010
- Bibcode:
- 2010AGUFM.S31A2005B
- Keywords:
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- 1932 INFORMATICS / High-performance computing;
- 7270 SEISMOLOGY / Tomography;
- 7290 SEISMOLOGY / Computational seismology