Source-encoded waveform inversion in the Northern Hemisphere

We use source-encoded waveform inversion to image Earth’s Northern Hemisphere. The encoding method is based on measurements of Laplace coefficients of stationary wavefields. By assigning to each event a unique frequency, we compute Fréchet derivatives for all events simultaneously based on one ‘super’ forward and one ‘super’ adjoint simulation for a small fraction of the computational cost of classical waveform inversion with the same data set. No cross-talk noise is introduced in the process, and the method does not require all events to be recorded by all stations. Starting from global model GLAD M25, we performed 100 conjugate gradient iterations using a data set consisting of 786 earthquakes recorded by 9846 stations. Synthetic inversion tests show that we achieve good convergence based on this data set, and we see a consistent misfit reduction during the inversion. The new model, named SE100, has much higher spatial resolution than GLAD M25, revealing details of the Yellowstone and Iceland hotspots, subduction beneath the Western United States and the upper mantle structure beneath the Arctic Ocean.