Receiver functions from regional P waves

Abstract

P waves from regional-distance earthquakes are complex and reverberatory, as would be expected from a combination of head waves, post-critical crustal reflections and shallow-incident P waves from the upper mantle. Although designed for steeply-incident teleseismic P waves, receiver functions (RFs) can also retrieve information about crustal structure from regional P. Using a new computation method based on multiple-taper spectral analysis, regional-distance RFs for GSN stations RAYN and ANTO show broad agreement with teleseismic RFs. At RAYN the moveout of the Moho-converted Ps phase, relative to direct P, follows the predictions of the IASP91 earth model well. The Moho-converted Ps phase shows complexity associated with the transition-zone triplications near Δ = 20° and constant delay (zero moveout) as Δ →0, consistent with conversion from Pn. Similar behaviour is seen for ANTO for events that arrive from the west. For eastern backzaimuths the ANTO RFs show features whose moveout is negative as Δ →0. This moveout is poorly fit by reverberations in flat layers or by direct scattering from a dipping interface, but is consistent with a topographic scatterer 20-30 km eastward of the ANTO site. Regional receiver functions may therefore be useful in judging whether teleseismic RFs at a particular station are suitable candidates for a I-D velocity structure inversion. Synthetic scismograms of regional P phases, computed with a locked-mode reflectivity approach in a 1-D structure, confirm several gross features of the RAYN and ANTO regional receiver functions.