Ambient noise Love wave attenuation tomography for the LASSIE array across the Los Angeles basin

The Los Angeles basin is located within the North America–Pacific plate boundary and contains multiple earthquake faults that threaten greater Los Angeles. Seismic attenuation tomography has the potential to provide important constraints on wave propagation in the basin and to provide supplementary information on structure in the form of the distribution of anelastic properties. On the basis of the amplitude information from seismic interferometry from the linear LASSIE array in the Los Angeles basin, we apply station-triplet attenuation tomography to obtain a 2D depth profile for the attenuation structure of the uppermost 0.6 km. The array crosses four Quaternary faults, three of which are blind. The attenuation tomography resolves strong attenuation (shear attenuation Qs ~ 20) for the fault zones and is consistent with sharp boundaries across them.

Double-difference seismic attenuation tomography method and its application to The Geysers geothermal field, California

SUMMARY Knowledge of attenuation structure is important for understanding subsurface material properties. We have developed a double-difference seismic attenuation (DDQ) tomography method for high-resolution imaging of 3-D attenuation structure. Our method includes two main elements, the inversion of event-pair differential ${t^*}$ ($d{t^*}$) data and 3-D attenuation tomography with the $d{t^*}$ data. We developed a new spectral ratio method that jointly inverts spectral ratio data from pairs of events observed at a common set of stations to determine the $d{t^*}$ data. The spectral ratio method cancels out instrument and site response terms, resulting in more accurate $d{t^*}$ data compared to absolute ${t^*}$ from traditional methods using individual spectra. Synthetic tests show that the inversion of $d{t^*}$ data using our spectral ratio method is robust to the choice of source model and a moderate degree of noise. We modified an existing velocity tomography code so that it can invert $d{t^*}$ data for 3-D attenuation structure. We applied the new method to The Geyser geothermal field, California, which has vapour-dominated reservoirs and a long history of water injection. A new Qp model at The Geysers is determined using P-wave data of earthquakes in 2011, using our updated earthquake locations and Vp model. By taking advantage of more accurate $d{t^*}$ data and the cancellation of model uncertainties along the common paths outside of the source region, the DDQ tomography method achieves higher resolution, especially in the earthquake source regions, compared to the standard tomography method using ${t^*}$ data. This is validated by both the real and synthetic data tests. Our Qp and Vp models show consistent variations in a normal temperature reservoir that can be explained by variations in fracturing, permeability and fluid saturation and/or steam pressure. A prominent low-Qp and Vp zone associated with very active seismicity is imaged within a high temperature reservoir at depths below 2 km. This anomalous zone is likely partially saturated with injected fluids.

3-D seismic attenuation structure of Long Valley caldera: looking for melt bodies in the shallow crust

SUMMARY Unrest at Long Valley caldera (California) during the past few decades has been attributed to the ascent of hydrothermal fluids or magma recharge. The difference is critical for assessing volcanic hazard. To better constrain subsurface structures in the upper crust and to help distinguish between these two competing hypotheses for the origin of unrest, we model the 3-D seismic attenuation structure because attenuation is particularly sensitive to the presence of melt. We analyse more than 47 000 vertical component waveforms recorded from January 2000 through November 2016 obtained from the Northern California Earthquake Data Center. We then inverted the S-to-coda energy ratios using the coda normalization method and obtained an average Q of 250. Low attenuation anomalies are imaged in the fluid-rich western and eastern areas of the caldera, one of which corresponds to the location of an earthquake swarm that occurred in 2014. From a comparison with other geophysical images (magnetotellurics, seismic tomography) we attribute the high attenuation anomalies to hydrothermal systems. Average to high attenuation values are also observed at Mammoth Mountain (southwest of the caldera), and may also have a hydrothermal origin. A large high attenuation anomaly within the caldera extends from the surface to the depths we can resolve at 9 km. Shallow rocks here are cold and this is where earthquakes occur. Together, these observations imply that the high attenuation region is not imaging a large magma body at shallow depths nor do we image any isolated high attenuation bodies in the upper ≈8 km that would be clear-cut evidence for partially molten bodies such as sills or other magma bodies.