Citation: | Citation: Yang, Z. G., and Song, X. D. (2019). Ambient noise Love wave tomography of China. Earth Planet. Phys., 3(3), 218–231. http://doi.org/10.26464/epp2019026. |
We first report on the Love wave tomography of China based on ambient noise cross-correlations. We used 3 years of continuous waveform data recorded by 206 broadband seismic stations on the Chinese Mainland and 36 neighboring global stations and obtained Love wave empirical Green’s functions from cross-correlations of the horizontal components. The Love wave group velocity dispersion measurements were used to construct dispersion maps of 8- to 40-s periods, which were then inverted to obtain a three-dimensional horizontally polarized S-wave (SH) velocity structure. The resolution was approximately 4° × 4° and 8° × 8° for eastern and western China, respectively, and extended to a depth of approximately 50 km. The SH model was generally consistent with a previously published vertically polarized S-wave (SV) model and showed large-scale features that were consistent with geological units, such as the major basins and changes in the crustal thickness across the north-south gravity lineament. The SH and SV models also showed substantial differences, which were used to examine the subsurface radial anisotropy. We define the radial anisotropy parameter as