Body-wave imaging of Earth's mantle discontinuities from ambient seismic noise.

Poli, P; Campillo, M; Pedersen, H; LAPNET Working Group · Science · 2012

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

Ambient seismic noise correlations are widely used for high-resolution surface-wave imaging of Earth's lithosphere. Similar observations of the seismic body waves that propagate through the interior of Earth would provide a window into the deep Earth. We report the observation of the mantle transition zone through noise correlations of P waves as they are reflected by the discontinuities associated with the top [410 kliometers (km)] and the bottom (660 km) of this zone. Our data demonstrate that high-resolution mapping of the mantle transition zone is possible without using earthquake sources.