Article,
Receiver function arrays: a reflection seismic approach
Geophysical Journal International, 141 (1): 1--11 (2000)
DOI: 10.1046/j.1365-246X.2000.00077.x
Abstract
The receiver function method (RFM) is a commonly used technique to
study the crustal and upper mantle velocity structure. Early receiver
function (RF) investigations were performed mostly at individual
permanent stations. They were focused on crustal structures, and
later on upper mantle velocity discontinuities (410 km and 660 km
discontinuities). Only recently has research been directed towards
the study of the lateral (2- and 3-D) variability of major velocity
boundaries in the crust and upper mantle by receiver function arrays
using temporary and permanent, three-component, short-period and
broad-band seismic stations. To improve the signal-to-noise ratio,
receiver functions are calculated for individual earthquakes and
are then binned, moveout corrected and stacked. We show that this
processing sequence is similar to that applied routinely in exploration
seismology. Therefore, existing tools from the near-vertical data
processing can be adopted for receiver functions: velocity analysis
tools, solutions for static and residual static problems, coherence
enhancement of seismic phases, migration, etc. The high spatial density
of seismic stations of recent and future receiver function experiments
provides the opportunity (and obligation) to use the more sophisticated
migration methods (full wavefield migration) commonly and successfully
used in exploration seismics. Synthetics calculated by the finite
difference method for simple 2-D crustal models are employed here
to test our processing approach and to show the potentials and limitations
of stacking and migrating RF data. We show that binning, normal move-out
(NMO) corrections, stacking and post-stack migration of the synthetic
data can reconstruct the models reliably with a high spatial resolution.
