Data-oriented constraint on the interpretation of S receiver function and its application to observations of seismic discontinuities in the lithosphere–asthenosphere system

Abstract

SUMMARY This paper aims to improve the robustness of interpretation in the S receiver function (SRF), a technique commonly used to retrieve forward scattering of S-to-P converted waves (Sdp) originated from the lithosphere–asthenosphere system (LAS) beneath the stations. Although the SRF does not suffer interferences from backward scattering waves such as the first multiples from the Moho, one major drawback in the method is that Sdp phases can interfere with P coda waves and it is conceivable that these signal-generated noise may be misinterpreted as Sdp phase from the LAS beneath seismic stations. Through systematic analysis of full-waveform synthetics and SRFs from catalogued source parameters, we find that the strong P coda waves before the S wave in the longitudinal-component waveforms result in unwanted signal-generated noise before the S wave in the synthetic SRFs. If the mean amplitude of SRFs after the S wave is large, dubious signal-generated noise before the S arrival are strong as well. In this study, we honor the level of these unwanted signal-generated noise and devise data-oriented screening criteria to minimize the interference between P coda waves and genuine S-to-P converted waves. The first criterion is LQR, a direct measure of the amplitude ratio between longitudinal P coda waves and radial S wave in the waveform data. The second criterion is AMP, the amplitude of SRFs after the S arrival. We illustrate that these criteria effectively measure the energy level of mantle waves such as the SP wave. With synthetics and real data, we demonstrate the effectiveness of LQR and AMP criteria in minimizing these unwanted signal-generated noise in the stacked SRFs down to 1–2 per cent, improving detection threshold and interpretation of Sdp phases from seismic discontinuities in the LAS.