HR: 17:00h
AN: S34C-05    [Abstracts]
TI: 2-D Finite Difference Modeling of the D'' Structure Beneath the Eastern Cocos Plate: Part I
AU: * Helmberger, D V
S34C-05 AU: Song, T A
S34C-05 AU: Sun, D
S34C-05 AB: The discovery of phase transition from Perovskite (Pv) to Post-Perovskite (PPv) at depth nears the lowermost mantle has revealed a new view of the earth's D'' layer (Oganov et al. 2004; Murakami et al. 2004). Hernlund et al. (2004) recently pusposed that, depending on the geotherm at the core-mantle boundary (CMB), a double-crossing of the phase boundary by the geotherm at two different depths may also occur. To explore these new findings, we adopt 2-D finite difference scheme (Helmberger and Vidale, 1988) to model wave propagation in rapidly varying structure. We collect broadband waveform data recorded by several Passcal experiments, such as La Ristra transect and CDROM transect in the southwest US to constrain the lateral variations in D'' structure. These data provide fairly dense sampling (~ 20 km) in the lowermost mantle beneath the eastern Cocos plate. Since the source-receiver paths are mostly in the same azimuth, we make 2-D cross-sections from global tomography model (Grand, 2002) and compute finite difference synthetics. We modify the lowermost mantle below 2500 km with constraints from transverse-component waveform data at epicentral distances of 70-82 degrees in the time window between S and ScS, essentially foward modeling waveforms. Assuming a velocity jump of 3 % at D'', our preferred model shows that the D'' topography deepens from the north to the south by about 120 km over a lateral distance of 300 km. Such large topography jumps have been proposed by Thomas et al. (2004) using data recorded by TriNet. In addition, there is a negative velocity jump (-3 %) 100 km above the CMB in the south. This simple model compare favorably with results from a study by Sun, Song and Helmberger (2005), who follow Sidorin et al. (1999) approach and produce a thermodynamically consistent velocity model with Pv-PPv phase boundary. It appears that much of this complexity exists in Grand's tomographic maps with rapid variation in velocities just above the D''. We also discuss the comparison of synthetics generated with analytic code (WKM), ray paths, snap-shots, and various complexities caused by possible 3-D structures. Some of these 3D effects can be seen in the extended TriNet array.
DE: 7203 Body waves
DE: 7208 Mantle (1212, 1213, 8124)
DE: 7290 Computational seismology
SC: Seismology [S]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005