Journal Article

The high-resolution community velocity model V2.0 of southwest China, constructed by joint body and surface wave tomography of data recorded at temporary dense arrays

Zhang, Zhiqi, Wang, Weitao, Liu, Ying, Fang, Lihua, Zhang, Haijiang, Yao, Huajian, Yu, Ziye, Fang, Hongjian

2023

Overview

The Sichuan-Yunnan area is located at the southeastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau, where tectonic movement is strong with deep and large faults distributed in a staggered manner, which results in strong seismic activities and severe earthquake hazards. Since the 21st century, several earthquakes of magnitude 7.0 or above occurred in this region, which have caused huge casualties and economic losses, especially the 2008 M s 8.0 Wenchuan earthquake. At present, earthquake monitoring and source parameter inversion, strong earthquake hazard analysis and disaster assessment are still the focus of seismological researches in the Sichuan-Yunnan region. Regional high-precision 3D community velocity models are fundamental for these studies. In this paper, by assembling seismic observations at permanent seismic stations and several temporary dense seismic arrays in this region, we obtained about 7.06 million body wave travel time data (including absolute and differential travel times) using a newly developed artificial intelligence body wave arrival time picking method and about 100,000 Rayleigh wave phase velocity dispersion data in the period range of 5–50 s from ambient noise cross-correlation technique. Based on this abundant dataset, we obtained the three-dimensional high resolution V p and V s model in the crust and uppermost mantle of southwest (SW) China by adopting the joint body and surface wave travel time tomography method considering the topography effect starting from the first version of community velocity model in SW China (SWChinaCVM-1.0). Compared to SWChinaCVM-1.0, this newly determined velocity model has higher resolution and better data fitness. It is accepted by the China Seismic Experimental Site as the second version of the community velocity model in SW China (SWChinaCVM-2.0). The new model shows strong lateral heterogeneities in the shallow crust. Two disconnected low velocity zones are observed in the middle to lower crust, which is located in the Songpan-Ganzi block and the northern Chuandian block to the west of the Longmenshan-Lijiang-Xiaojinhe fault, and beneath the Xiaojiang fault zone, respectively. The inner zone of the Emeishan large igneous province (ELIP) exhibits a high velocity anomaly, which separates the two aforementioned low velocity anomalies. Low velocity anomaly is also shown beneath the Tengchong volcano. The velocity structures in the vicinity of the 2008 M s 8.0 Wenchuan earthquake, the 2013 M s 7.0 Lushan earthquake and the 2017 M s 7.0 Jiuzhaigou earthquake mainly show high V p and V s anomalies and the mainshocks are basically located at the transition zone between the high and low velocity anomalies. Along with the segmentation characteristics of seismic activity, we suggest that areas with significant changes in velocity structures, especially in active fault zones, might have a greater potential to generate moderate to strong earthquakes.

• Publisher: Science China Press,Springer Nature B.V
• Subject: Ambient noise / Anomalies / Arrays / Artificial intelligence / Casualties / Cross correlation / Earth and Environmental Science / Earth Sciences / Earthquakes / Economic impact / Fault lines / Fault zones / Geological faults / Geological hazards / Hazard assessment / High resolution / Modelling / Phase velocity / Plateaus / Rayleigh waves / Seismic activity / Seismic arrays / Seismic hazard / Seismology / Surface water waves / Surface waves / Tectonics / Three dimensional models / Tomography / Topographic effects / Transition zone / Travel time / Velocity / Volcanoes / Wave dispersion / Wave phase / Wave velocity