Receiver functions from seismic interferometry: a practical guide

Abstract

This paper reviews the concepts underlying the well-documented receiver functions (RFs) method, and places it in the conceptual framework of seismic interferometry. We first propose a simple and efficient approach for isolating the receiver-side seismic response (i.e. the record of reflections and conversions in the stratification beneath receivers): this method makes use of the P-wave coda recorded on the radial and vertical components of three-component stations, applies spectral whitening, which is followed by auto- and cross-correlation. The interferometric principle underpinning RFs analysis is shown theoretically and illustrated in practice using earthquake records and synthetic waveforms computed from simple structures. We point out to a major limitation, which is the contamination of the receiver-side response by propagation effects in the source-side structure. We then apply our approach to teleseismic earthquake data recorded in California. We show that the reconstructed vertical and horizontal seismic responses can be back-projected to illuminate the crustal and mantle structure. We build comparable ∼300-km-long seismic reflectivity profiles from pure P-wave reverberations and from the converted wavefield across the forearc and arc of the southern Cascadia subduction zone. Then, we show a case of processing data from narrow bandpass, short-period and single-component sensors, usually unsuitable for RFs analysis. Finally, through the same interferometric principle, we attempt to demonstrate a link between event- and noise-based seismic interferometry. We demonstrate that it is possible to extract approximate responses from the records of low-magnitude—down to 4.5—teleseismic earthquakes. We make a comparison of these estimates with the result from the autocorrelation of the continuous ambient noise seismic wavefield. While the amplitudes of the extracted receiver-side responses are mutually different, their phases are in a relative agreement. This development opens a way to the use of small magnitude teleseismic earthquakes to characterize the receiver-side structure.