Benchmarking Passive Seismic Methods of Imaging Surface Wave Velocity Interfaces Down to 300 m — Mapping Murray Basin Thickness in Southeastern Australia

Abstract:

In shallow passive seismology it is generally thought that the spatial autocorrelation (SPAC) method is more robust than the horizontal over vertical spectral ratio (HVSR) method at resolving the depth to surface-wave velocity (Vs) interfaces. Here we present results of a field test of these two methods over ten drill sites in Victoria, Australia. The target interface is the base of Cenozoic unconsolidated to semi-consolidated clastic and/or carbonate sediments of the Murray Basin, which overlie Paleozoic crystalline rocks. Drilled depths of this interface are between 27 and 300 m. A three-arm spiral array, with a radius of 250 m, consisting of 13 Trillium compact broadband seismometers was deployed at each site for 7–21 hours. The Vs architecture beneath each site was determined through nonlinear inversion of HVSR and SPAC data using the neighborhood algorithm of Sambridge (1999) implemented in geopsy by Wathelet et al (2005). The HVSR technique yielded depth estimates, of the target interface (Vs > 1000 m/s), generally within 20% error. Successful estimates were even obtained at a site with an inverted velocity profile, where Quaternary basalts overlie Neogene sediments. Half of the SPAC estimates showed significantly higher errors than obtained using HVSR. Joint inversion provided the most reliable estimates but was unstable at three sites. We attribute the surprising success of HVSR over SPAC to a low content of transient signals within the seismic record caused by low degrees of anthropogenic noise at the benchmark sites. At a few sites SPAC curves showed clear overtones suggesting that more reliable SPAC estimates maybe obtained utilizing a multi modal inversion. Nevertheless, our study seems to indicate that reliable basin thickness estimates in remote Australia can be obtained utilizing HVSR data from a single seismometer, without a priori knowledge of the surface-wave velocity of the basin material, thereby negating the need to deploy cumbersome arrays.