For over 40 yr, the global centroid-moment tensor (GCMT) project has determined location and source parameters for globally recorded earthquakes larger than magnitude 5.0. The GCMT database remains a trusted staple for the geophysical community. Its point-source moment-tensor solutions are the result of inversions that model long-period observed seismic waveforms via normal-mode summation for a 1-D reference earth model, augmented by path corrections to capture 3-D variations in surface wave phase speeds, and to account for crustal structure. While this methodology remains essentially unchanged for the ongoing GCMT catalogue, source inversions based on waveform modelling in low-resolution 3-D earth models have revealed small but persistent biases in the standard modelling approach. Keeping pace with the increased capacity and demands of global tomography requires a revised catalogue of centroid-moment tensors (CMT), automatically and reproducibly computed using Green's functions from a state-of-the-art 3-D earth model. In this paper, we modify the current procedure for the full-waveform inversion of seismic traces for the six moment-tensor parameters, centroid latitude, longitude, depth and centroid time of global earthquakes. We take the GCMT solutions as a point of departure but update them to account for the effects of a heterogeneous earth, using the global 3-D wave speed model GLAD-M25. We generate synthetic seismograms from Green's functions computed by the spectral-element method in the 3-D model, select observed seismic data and remove their instrument response, process synthetic and observed data, select segments of observed and synthetic data based on similarity, and invert for new model parameters of the earthquake’s centroid location, time and moment tensor. The events in our new, preliminary database containing 9382 global event solutions, called CMT3D for ‘3-D centroid-moment tensors’, are on average 4 km shallower, about 1 s earlier, about 5 per cent larger in scalar moment, and more double-couple in nature than in the GCMT catalogue. We discuss in detail the geographical and statistical distributions of the updated solutions, and place them in the context of earlier work. We plan to disseminate our CMT3D solutions via the online ShakeMovie platform.
Precisely constraining the source parameters of large earthquakes is one of the primary objectives of seismology. However, the quality of the results relies on the quality of synthetic earth response. Although earth structure is laterally heterogeneous, particularly at shallow depth, most earthquake source studies at the global scale rely on the Green's functions calculated with radially symmetric (1-D) earth structure. To avoid the impact of inaccurate Green's functions, these conventional source studies use a limited set of seismic phases, such as long-period seismic waves, broad-band P and S waves in teleseismic distances (30° < ∆ < 90°), and strong ground motion records at close-fault stations. The enriched information embedded in the broad-band seismograms recorded by global and regional networks is largely ignored, limiting the spatiotemporal resolution. Here we calculate 3-D strain Green's functions at 30 GSN stations for source regions of 9 selected global earthquakes and one earthquake-prone area (California), with frequency up to 67 mHz (15 s), using SPECFEM3D_GLOBE and the reciprocity theorem. The 3-D SEM mesh model is composed of mantle model S40RTS, crustal model CRUST2.0 and surface topography ETOPO2. We surround each target event with grids in horizontal spacing of 5 km and vertical spacing of 2.0–3.0 km, allowing us to investigate not only the main shock but also the background seismicity. In total, the response at over 210 000 source points is calculated in simulation. The number of earthquakes, including different focal mechanisms, centroid depth range and tectonic background, could further increase without additional computational cost if they were properly selected to avoid overloading individual CPUs. The storage requirement can be reduced by two orders of magnitude if the output strain Green's functions are stored for periods over 15 s. We quantitatively evaluate the quality of these 3-D synthetic seismograms, which are frequency and phase dependent, for each source region using nearby aftershocks, before using them to constrain the focal mechanisms and slip distribution. Case studies show that using a 3-D earth model significantly improves the waveform similarity, agreement in amplitude and arrival time of seismic phases with the observations. The limitations of current 3-D models are still notable, dependent on seismic phases and frequency range. The 3-D synthetic seismograms cannot well match the high frequency (>40 mHz) S wave and (>20 mHz) Rayleigh wave yet. Though the mean time-shifts are close to zero, the standard deviations are notable. Careful calibration using the records of nearby better located earthquakes is still recommended to take full advantage of better waveform similarity due to the use of 3-D models. Our results indicate that it is now feasible to systematically study global large earthquakes using full 3-D earth response in a global scale.
more » « less- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10366830
- Publisher / Repository:
- Oxford University Press
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Geophysical Journal International
- Volume:
- 230
- Issue:
- 3
- ISSN:
- 0956-540X
- Format(s):
- Medium: X Size: p. 1546-1564
- Size(s):
- ["p. 1546-1564"]
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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SUMMARY Accurate synthetic seismic wavefields can now be computed in 3-D earth models using the spectral element method (SEM), which helps improve resolution in full waveform global tomography. However, computational costs are still a challenge. These costs can be reduced by implementing a source stacking method, in which multiple earthquake sources are simultaneously triggered in only one teleseismic SEM simulation. One drawback of this approach is the perceived loss of resolution at depth, in particular because high-amplitude fundamental mode surface waves dominate the summed waveforms, without the possibility of windowing and weighting as in conventional waveform tomography.
This can be addressed by redefining the cost-function and computing the cross-correlation wavefield between pairs of stations before each inversion iteration. While the Green’s function between the two stations is not reconstructed as well as in the case of ambient noise tomography, where sources are distributed more uniformly around the globe, this is not a drawback, since the same processing is applied to the 3-D synthetics and to the data, and the source parameters are known to a good approximation. By doing so, we can separate time windows with large energy arrivals corresponding to fundamental mode surface waves. This opens the possibility of designing a weighting scheme to bring out the contribution of overtones and body waves. It also makes it possible to balance the contributions of frequently sampled paths versus rarely sampled ones, as in more conventional tomography.
Here we present the results of proof of concept testing of such an approach for a synthetic 3-component long period waveform data set (periods longer than 60 s), computed for 273 globally distributed events in a simple toy 3-D radially anisotropic upper mantle model which contains shear wave anomalies at different scales. We compare the results of inversion of 10 000 s long stacked time-series, starting from a 1-D model, using source stacked waveforms and station-pair cross-correlations of these stacked waveforms in the definition of the cost function. We compute the gradient and the Hessian using normal mode perturbation theory, which avoids the problem of cross-talk encountered when forming the gradient using an adjoint approach. We perform inversions with and without realistic noise added and show that the model can be recovered equally well using one or the other cost function.
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SUMMARY The spectral element method is currently the method of choice for computing accurate synthetic seismic wavefields in realistic 3-D earth models at the global scale. However, it requires significantly more computational time, compared to normal mode-based approximate methods. Source stacking, whereby multiple earthquake sources are aligned on their origin time and simultaneously triggered, can reduce the computational costs by several orders of magnitude. We present the results of synthetic tests performed on a realistic radially anisotropic 3-D model, slightly modified from model SEMUCB-WM1 with three component synthetic waveform ‘data’ for a duration of 10 000 s, and filtered at periods longer than 60 s, for a set of 273 events and 515 stations. We consider two definitions of the misfit function, one based on the stacked records at individual stations and another based on station-pair cross-correlations of the stacked records. The inverse step is performed using a Gauss–Newton approach where the gradient and Hessian are computed using normal mode perturbation theory. We investigate the retrieval of radially anisotropic long wavelength structure in the upper mantle in the depth range 100–800 km, after fixing the crust and uppermost mantle structure constrained by fundamental mode Love and Rayleigh wave dispersion data. The results show good performance using both definitions of the misfit function, even in the presence of realistic noise, with degraded amplitudes of lateral variations in the anisotropic parameter ξ. Interestingly, we show that we can retrieve the long wavelength structure in the upper mantle, when considering one or the other of three portions of the cross-correlation time series, corresponding to where we expect the energy from surface wave overtone, fundamental mode or a mixture of the two to be dominant, respectively. We also considered the issue of missing data, by randomly removing a successively larger proportion of the available synthetic data. We replace the missing data by synthetics computed in the current 3-D model using normal mode perturbation theory. The inversion results degrade with the proportion of missing data, especially for ξ, and we find that a data availability of 45 per cent or more leads to acceptable results. We also present a strategy for grouping events and stations to minimize the number of missing data in each group. This leads to an increased number of computations but can be significantly more efficient than conventional single-event-at-a-time inversion. We apply the grouping strategy to a real picking scenario, and show promising resolution capability despite the use of fewer waveforms and uneven ray path distribution. Source stacking approach can be used to rapidly obtain a starting 3-D model for more conventional full-waveform inversion at higher resolution, and to investigate assumptions made in the inversion, such as trade-offs between isotropic, anisotropic or anelastic structure, different model parametrizations or how crustal structure is accounted for.
