Mapping Spatial Variations of Absorption and Scattering in the Crust: Sensitivity Kernels and Preliminary Application to the Alps

Abstract:

Among the physical processes that affect the amplitude of seismic waves, attenuation is one of the most poorly understood and undetermined factor. Two basic mechanisms control seismic attenuation in the crust: scattering by small-scale heterogeneities, and absorption of seismic energy by inelastic and irreversible processes. A number of techniques have been devised to retrieve attenuation information from the modeling of direct seismic waves emitted by earthquakes. However, a major issue with the use of ballistic signals lies in the fact that their amplitude is affected by multiple factors that are difficult to disentangle in practice: radiation pattern, focussing/defocussing or site effects. Moreover, since both scattering and absorption manifest themselves as an approximately exponential decay of direct wave amplitude with distance, it is not possible to separate their effects from attenuation measurements based on ballistic waves only. In this work, we propose a multiple scattering approach to map independently scattering and absorption properties of the crust using seismic coda waves. To this end, we introduce a model of energy transport of seismic energy known as radiative transfer and use perturbation theory to derive sensitivity kernels for the intensity detected in the coda. Numerical evaluation of these kernels demonstrates that coda waves possess distinct spatial sensitivities to absorption and scattering. These results pave the way for the development of a genuine tomographic approach to the mapping of absorption and scattering in the crust. Preliminary results on the absorption structure of the Alps in the 1-32 Hz frequency reveal some interesting correlations with the geology at spatial scales ranging from a few tens to a few thousand kilometers. Regions of high absorption delineate sedimentary structures such as basins, grabens and alluvial valleys while localized zones of weak absorption correlate with mantellic or plutonic intrusions such as the Ivrea body or the Adamello intrusive complex (see Figure). It is suggested that the frequency-dependent attenuation structure bears information on the stratification of absorption in the crust.