Australian Continental Crust Velocity Maps from 40 Years of Seismic Noise

Surface wave velocity maps of the Australian continental crust derived from 40 years of passive seismic records. The model, constructed from surface wave velocity maps at periods from 2 to 60 seconds, resolves major sedimentary basins and was validated against deep-crustal active seismic profiles and borehole data. The data was presented at the 2025 IAGA/IASPEI Joint Scientific Meeting and is associated with Geoscience Australia Data.

Use Cases

• Imaging large-scale crustal structures based on surface wave velocity maps
• Mapping the lateral extent and depth of sedimentary basins based on velocity contrasts
• Validating seismic models against active seismic profiles and borehole data mentioned in the description
• Investigating regions with significant water saturation based on detected low velocities

Strengths

• Model constructed from 40 years of passive seismic records, suggesting a long temporal baseline
• Velocity maps cover periods from 2 to 60 seconds, providing multi-scale crustal information
• Validation performed against independent deep-crustal active seismic profiles and borehole data

Limitations

• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia Data

Collection Method

Ambient noise tomography computed from hourly cross-correlations of seismic data stacked into noise correlation functions, with dispersion curves extracted via an automated workflow.

Time Range

Covers 40 years of seismic records (specific years not stated)

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-23 17:33:41.395701; freshness should be verified

Geography

Australian continent, including specific basins like Canning, Officer, and Great Artesian Basin