Crustal S-wave velocity structure of the Yellowstone region using a seismic ambient noise method

Abstract

The Yellowstone volcano is one of the largest active volcanoes in the world, and its potential hazards demand detailed seismological and geodetic studies. Previous studies with travel time tomography and receiver functions have revealed a low-velocity layer in the crust beneath the Yellowstone volcano, suggesting the presence of a magma chamber at depth. We use ambient seismic noise from regional seismic stations to retrieve short-period surface waves and then study the shallow shear velocity structure of the Yellowstone region by surface wave dispersion analysis. We first obtained a crustal model of the area outside of the Yellowstone volcano and then constructed an absolute shear wave velocity structure in combination with receiver function results for the crust beneath the Yellowstone volcano. The velocity model shows a low-velocity layer with shear velocity at around 1.3 km/s, suggesting that a large-scale magma chamber exists at shallow levels within the crust of the Yellowstone volcanic region. © 2013 The Seismological Society of China and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.