Receiver Function Analyses for Estimating Seismic Velocity Discontinuity Structure

Abstract

Receiver function analyses have been developed since the late 1970s. Receiver functions are calculated by deconvolving the vertical component from the horizontal components of teleseismic P waveforms in order to remove the complexities of the source time functions and to extract the structural information beneath seismic stations. The receiver functions are sensitive to impedance discontinuities of the earth’s interior, especially to the shear wave velocity discontinuities. Therefore, the receiver function analyses have advantages in estimating the shear wave velocity structure and imaging the shear wave velocity discontinuities. In this paper we introduce several basic topics of the receiver function analyses. Firstly, we discuss the method of the calculation of the receiver functions, pointing out weaknesses in the water level method and the multitaper method and introducing the extended-time multitaper method. Secondly, we describe the inversions of the receiver functions for the shear wave velocity structure. We show two examples with the genetic algorithm. Thirdly, we introduce the way and several examples to image the shear wave velocity discontinuities with the use of the receiver functions. Finally, we discuss issues in the receiver function analyses which have not been addressed yet but should be in the near future.