A map and 3 graphs showing the waveform fits for an earthquake.
Waveform fits for an earthquake northwest of Vancouver Island recorded along a corridor of stations across California. The left panel displays raypaths from earthquake epicenter (represented by focal mechanism in red) to individual stations. The three panels on the right display vertical, radial and transverse component waveform simulations for the WUS256 model (in green) superposed upon observed seismograms (in black), for periods between 20-120 seconds. Note the excellent fits, in particular, for later scattered phases. Credit: Rodgers et al. [2022], Figure 8a (left) and 8c (right)
Editors’ Highlights are summaries of recent papers by AGU’s journal editors.
Source: Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth

Though its usage is becoming increasingly commonplace, the method of adjoint tomography is challenging to implement due to complex workflows, large data sets, difficulties in visualization and computational costs.

Rodgers et al. [2022] effectively leverage the comprehensive USArray dataset in the recovery of western United States crust and upper mantle velocity structure using adjoint tomography.  Resulting 3D wavefield simulations of 72 regional earthquakes representing a total of over 94,000 three-component broadband waveforms display remarkable fidelity to observed seismograms, providing testament to the veracity of recovered structure. 

The western U.S. 3D (WUS256) model presented here will likely serve as an important reference in future studies.  

Citation: Rodgers, A., Krischer, L., Afanasiev, M., Boehm, C., Doody, C., Chiang, A., & Simmons, N. (2022). WUS256: An Adjoint Waveform Tomography Model of the Crust and Upper Mantle of the Western United States for Improved Waveform Simulations. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 127, e2022JB024549. https://doi.org/10.1029/2022JB024549

—Michael Bostock, Editor, Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth

Text © 2022. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
Except where otherwise noted, images are subject to copyright. Any reuse without express permission from the copyright owner is prohibited.