Shear wave speed structure beneath the South Pacific superswell using broadband data from ocean floor and islands

Abstract

We determined three-dimensional shear wave speed structure beneath the South Pacific superswell down to a depth of 200 km by analyzing Rayleigh wave records from broadband ocean bottom seismograph stations and island stations in the Pacific Ocean. The ocean bottom stations were deployed from 2003 to 2005 on the seafloor in the French Polynesian region, which enabled us to study the upper mantle structure beneath the Superswell with unprecedentedly high resolution. We measured the dispersions of fundamental mode Rayleigh waves at periods between 40 and 140 seconds by the two-station method. We found pronounced slow anomalies near the hot spots and in the Lau Basin. The slow anomalies beneath the hot spots have deeper-rooted than those associated with the Lau basin. The slow anomalies near the Society, Macdonald, Marquesas, and Pitcairn hot soots continue down to at least 200 km depth. Copyright 2006 by the American Geophysical Union.