Three-Dimensional a Priori Model Constraints and Uncertainties for Improving Seismic Location

Abstract : Accurate seismic event location is key to monitoring the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) and is largely dependent on our understanding of the crust and mantle velocity structure. This is particularly challenging in aseismic regions, devoid of calibration data, which leads us to rely on a priori constraints on the velocities. We investigate our ability to improve seismic event location in the Middle East, North Africa, and the Former Soviet Union (ME/NA/FSU) by using a priori three-dimensional (3-D) velocity models in lieu of more commonly used one dimensional (1-D) models. Event locations based on 1-D models are often biased, as they do not account for significant travel-time variations that result from heterogeneous crust and mantle; it follows that 3-D velocity models have the potential to reduce this bias. Here, we develop a composite 3-D model for the ME/NA/FSU regions. This fully 3-D model is an amalgamation of studies ranging from seismic reflection to geophysical analogy. Our a priori model specifies geographic boundaries and velocity structures based on geology, tectonics, and seismicity and information taken from published literature, namely a global sediment thickness map of 1 deg resolution (Laske and Masters, 1997), a regionalized crustal model based on geology and tectonics (Sweeney and Walter, 1998; Bhattacharyya et al., 2000; Walter et al., 2000), and regionalized upper mantle (RUM) models developed from teleseismic travel times (Gudmundsson and Sambridge, 1998). The components of this model were chosen for the complementary structures they provide. The 1 deg sediment map and regionalized crustal model provide detailed structures and boundaries not available in the more coarse 5 deg models used for global-scale studies. The RUM models offer improved resolution over global tomography, most notably above depths of 300 km where heterogeneity is greatest; however, we plan to test other published upper mantle models of both P- and S-wave veloc