Abstract: ESC General Assembly, Montpellier, 2010

Abstract: Seismic noise spectra at all seismic stations display two peaks in the 1–20 s period band, called primary and secondary microseisms. They are caused by the coupling of ocean waves into Rayleigh waves. At most locations, microseismic power is greater during local winter (when nearby oceans are stormier) than local summer. This tendency is reversed for stations in Antarctica, where growth of local winter sea ice seems to impede microseism generation in near coastal areas. A decade of continuous data from coastal seismic stations in Antarctica show systematic seasonality in microseismic signal levels, and demonstrate associations with both broad-scale and local sea-ice conditions. Primary microseisms are known to be generated at the coast and the modulation that we observe can be associated with sea-ice variations both in the vicinity of the station and along other Antarctic coasts. The similar modulation of short-period secondary microseisms corroborates their mostly near-coastal origin, while the continued presence of long-period secondary microseisms suggests more distant source regions. These observations could be used to extend the monitoring of climate variability prior to the availability of satellite-derived climate indicators.

Abstract: The attenuation of seismic shear waves in the mantle beneath the eastern Australian and Antarctic plates is analysed using a large data set of multiple ScSn waves, reflected n times at the core-mantle boundary and (n-1) times at the surface. The data are the transverse components of deep earthquakes from the subduction zones north and east of Australia, recorded at stations in Antarctica, Australia, Indonesia, New Caledonia and New Zealand. The data are filtered with narrow bandpass filters at five frequencies in the range 0.013-0.040 Hz. The ScSn+1/ScSn amplitude ratios of successive ScS phases are compared to the ratios computed for synthetic seismograms for the same paths and same focal mechanisms, to eliminate the effects of source radiation and geometric attenuation. The synthetic seismograms are computed from a summation of toroidal modes for the 1-D reference model PREM. The observed to computed spectral ratios appear consistent for similar paths. They reveal that the attenuation is not frequency dependent, that the contribution of scattering to attenuation is low, and that the PREM model is a valuable reference model for the study region at the considered frequencies. An inversion of the data at 0.026Hz is performed to retrieve the quality factor Q in the upper mantle, in regions defined using a priori constraints inferred from seismic shear velocities. Q values close to those of PREM are found beneath the Australian and Antarctic cratons, lower values beneath the Eastern Australian Phanerozoic margin, and very low values beneath the oceanic region between Australia and Antarctica, where ridges and a triple junction are present. The Australian-Antarctic Discordance along the South Indian ridge appears as an exception with a Q value close to those of stable continents. The highest Q values are found beneath the subduction zones, a feature which is not apparent in global attenuation models possibly because of its narrow lateral extension, and because it extends at depths larger than those sampled by surface waves. Despite limitations due to the uneven distribution of the ScSn bounce points at the surface and to the difficulty of collecting a large number of high quality data, our approach appears very promising. It is complementary to the more widely used determination of seismic attenuation using surface waves because it provides increased depth coverage, and a broader spectral coverage. It therefore has a considerable potential in future investigations of mantle structure and dynamics.

Abstract: We have recently proposed the revised spherical cap harmonic analysis (R-SCHA) modeling technique. The new mathematical functions represent faithfully the spatial variations of potential fields in a restricted area. In this paper, we tackle the inverse problem and outline the efficiency of the new basis functions with respect to real magnetic data. Processing simultaneously repeat stations, observatory, aeromagnetic, and CHAMP satellite data provides our first vector lithospheric field model over France, which extends from surface to 500 km of altitude. The magnetic field is represented with a minimum horizontal spatial representation of 40 km at the mean Earth radius. The magnetic lithospheric map consistency is confirmed with a comparison to known geological features. The model variation with altitude also suggests that the major French magnetic anomaly, the Paris basin anomaly, is produced by a deep-rooted geological structure. These results demonstrate the superiority of regional modeling over global modeling for delineating small-scale details in the lithospheric field. In view of forthcoming satellite missions, like Swarm, the revised spherical cap harmonic analysis method will help to accurately represent the lithospheric field for more detailed geological interpretations.