Seismic Anisotropy of the Victoria Land region, Antactica

Abstract

We present shear-wave splitting results obtained from the analysis of core refracted teleseismic phases recorded by permanent and temporary seismographic stations located in the Victoria Land region (Antarctica). We use an eigenvalue technique to isolate the rotated and shifted shear-wave particle motion, in order to determine the best splitting parameters. Average values show clearly that dominant fast axis direction is NE-SW oriented, in accordance with previous measurements obtained around this zone. Only two stations, OHG and STAR show different orientations, with N-S and NNW-SSE main directions. On the basis of the periodicity of single shear-wave splitting measurements with respect to back-azimuths of events under study, we infer the presence of lateral and vertical changes in the deep anisotropy direction. To test this hypothesis we model waveforms using a cross-convolution technique for the cases of one and two anisotropic layers. We obtain a significant improvement on the misfit in the double layer case for the two stations. For stations where a multi-layer structure does not fit, we investigate lateral anisotropy changes at depth through Fresnel zone computation. We find that anisotropy beneath the Transantarctic Mountains (TAM) is considerably different from that beneath the Ross Sea. This feature influences the measurement distribution for the two permanent stations TNV and VNDA. Our results show a dominant NE-SW direction over the entire region, but other anisotropy directions are present and maybe interpreted in the context of regional tectonics.