Flat and Sharp Earth's Inner Core Boundary Beneath Mid-Eastern China
Determined by PKiKP Spectrum Fitting
Abstract
The properties of the inner core boundary (ICB) carry important
information about the growth of the solid inner core and solidification
of the liquid outer core. In this presentation, we study the ICB by
analyzing the spectrum difference of PKiKP (a compressional wave
reflected from the ICB) and PcP (a compressional wave reflected from the
core-mantle boundary) phase pair. Our dataset includes the seismic data
recorded by the Hi-net in Japan for two earthquakes occurring in Myanmar
on 4th September 2009 and 4th February 2011, with their PKiKP waves
sampling the ICB beneath mid-eastern China. Little waveform and spectrum
differences are observed between PKiKP and PcP waves in the seismic
data. By comparing spectrum shapes of the seismic data and the
synthetics of models with various topographic fluctuations and
transitional thicknesses of ICB, we conclude that the studied ICB region
is flat and sharp. Within the resolvability of the seismic data, the ICB
topographic fluctuation of the region is less than 200 m in height and
the transition of the boundary is thinner than 100 m in thickness.