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Seismic evidence for distinct anisotropy in the innermost inner core

Nature Geoscience volume 1, pages 692–696 (2008)Cite this article

Abstract

Knowledge of the seismic structure of the innermost inner core is important for understanding the formation of the inner core1,2,3. It has been suggested recently that this region may exhibit distinct seismic anisotropy4,5. Here, we use the difference in travel times between seismic waves reflected at the underside of the inner core boundary and those traversing the inner core to constrain the seismic anisotropy. We calculated travel-time residuals for waves generated by two deep earthquakes that occurred in Indonesia and Argentina respectively, recorded by seismic arrays in Venezuela and China. The travel-time residuals are systematically larger, by about 1.8 s, for waves that travel roughly along the equatorial plane of the inner core (Indonesia–Venezuela) than for those travelling in a direction at an angle of ∼28∘ to the equatorial plane (from Argentina to China). The difference in travel times is arguably most sensitive to the structure near the centre of the Earth, and thus provides evidence for deep layering within the inner core. Our results are consistent with models invoking seismic anisotropy of the innermost inner core with the slowest direction tilted at an angle of ∼45∘ to the equatorial plane4.

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Figure 1: Ray paths and synthetic seismograms of the core phases.
Figure 2: Map of the earthquakes and the arrays.
Figure 3: Examples of seismograms recorded by the two arrays.
Figure 4: Results of stacking and beam-forming analyses.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the BOLIVAR team, FUNVISIS (Venezuelan Foundation for Seismological Research) and CEA (China Earthquake Administration) for providing the data, N. Takeuchi for providing the DSM code and H. Kawakatsu and S. Tanaka for helpful discussions. This work is supported by Rice University and the NSF.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth Science, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, Texas 77005, USA

    Fenglin Niu

  2. Institute of Earthquake Science, China Earthquake Administration, No. 63 Fuxing Avenue, Beijing, 100036, China

    Qi-Fu Chen

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  1. Fenglin Niu
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  2. Qi-Fu Chen
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Correspondence to Fenglin Niu.

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Niu, F., Chen, QF. Seismic evidence for distinct anisotropy in the innermost inner core. Nature Geosci 1, 692–696 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo314

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