Constraints on small-scale heterogeneity in the lowermost mantle from observations of near podal PcP precursors

• Published in: Earth and Planetary Science Letters
• Main Authors: Zhang, Baolong, Ni, Sidao, Sun, Daoyuan, Shen, Zhichao, Jackson, Jennifer M., Wu, Wenbo
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Elsevier 2018
• Subjects: near podal PcP precursor; lowermost mantle; small-scale heterogeneity; Okhotsk; okhotsk sea
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2018.01.033

Volumetric heterogeneities on large (∼>1000 km) and intermediate scales (∼>100 km) in the lowermost mantle have been established with seismological approaches. However, there are controversies regarding the level of heterogeneity in the lowermost mantle at small scales (a few kilometers to tens of kilometers), with lower bound estimates ranging from 0.1% to a few percent. We take advantage of the small amplitude PcP waves at near podal distances (0–12°) to constrain the level of small-scale heterogeneity within 250 km above the CMB. First, we compute short period synthetic seismograms with a finite difference code for a series of volumetric heterogeneity models in the lowermost mantle, and find that PcP is not identifiable if the small-scale heterogeneity in the lowermost mantle is above 2.5%. We then use a functional form appropriate for coda decay to suppress P coda contamination. By comparing the corrected envelope of PcP and its precursors with synthetic seismograms, we find that perturbations of small-scale (∼8 km) heterogeneity in the lowermost mantle is ∼0.2–0.5% beneath regions of the China–Myanmar border area, Okhotsk Sea and South America. Whereas strong perturbations (∼1.0%) are found beneath Central America. In the regions studied, we find that this particular type of small-scale heterogeneity in the lowermost mantle is weak, yet there are some regions requiring heterogeneity up to 1.0%. Where scattering is stronger, such as under Central America, more chemically complex mineral assemblages may be present at the core–mantle boundary. © 2018 Elsevier B.V. Received 29 August 2017, Revised 25 January 2018, Accepted 29 January 2018, Available online 14 March 2018. We thank the State Earthquake Information Service-Data Management Center of China, National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention of Japan, Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology Data Management Center for providing data used in this study. Seismic Analysis Code (SAC) and Generic ...