Thorsten W. Becker

Jackson School of Geosciences
The University of Texas at Austin

SKS splitting compilation


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all SKS database entries, 2 by 2 degree averaged
All SKS database entries, station averaged
Here, we provide an update of the SKS splitting databased of Becker et al., 2012, new version as of December 21, 2022.

This work was made possible by the willingness of seismologists to share their results, and our database is largely based on, and reusing, the compilation efforts of G. Barruol, A. Wüstefeld, M. Fouch, D. Schutt, and P. Silver. In particular, our database is not meant to reproduce the ongoing efforts by G. Barruol to keep Wüstefeld's et al.'s (2009) SKS database updated.

However, our compilation does hold back-azimuth and event data for some of the studies, information not available for some of the other compilations. References for the source data bases we use include:

  • Wüstefeld, A. and Bokelmann, G. H. R. and Barruol, G. and Montagner, J. P.: Identifying global seismic anisotropy patterns by correlating shear-wave splitting and surface-wave data, Phys. Earth Planet. Int., 176, 198-212, 2009. Database available online at http://www.gm.univ-montp2.fr/splitting/DB/. (Version as of 05/2011 was used for Becker et al., 2012; for the current version, see below).
  • Fouch, M.: Upper Mantle Anisotropy Database, was at http://geophysics.asu.edu/anisotropy/upper/, accessed 06/2006, 2006.
  • Silver, P. G.: Seismic anisotropy beneath the continents: probing the depths of geology, Ann. Rev. Earth Planet. Sci., 24, 385-432, 1996.
In addition to merging existing compilations and adding back-azimuth information to many of the studies, we are adding a small number of individual studies not found (fully, at the time of merging) in the other compilations, some of which are listed below.

Current JSG Geodynamics SKS data base

We continue to update our SKS splitting database. The newest version (as of December 21, 2022) can be found below, the format is as described in the README for the old version of the database above: We also have generalized spherical harmonics expansions of those data, please contact me if interested.

Besides the studies used for Becker et al. (2012), we currently include additional work by several additional studies including those listed below (which may have later been included in the Wuestefeld/Montpellier database, and we attempt to check for, and then remove, duplicates)

  • An updated (06/02/2022) version of Barruol and Wuestefeld et al.'s (2009) splitting database (IRIS copy).
  • Anderson, M. L., G. Zandt, E. Triep, M. Fouch, and S. Beck (2004): Anisotropy and mantle flow in the Chile-Argentina subduction zone from shear wave splitting analysis, Geophys. Res. Lett., 31, L23608, doi:10.1029/2004GL020906.
  • Di Leo, J. F., J. Wookey, J. O. S. Hammond, J.-M. Kendall, S. Kaneshima, H. Inoue, T. Yamashina, and P. Harjadi (2012), Mantle flow in regions of complex tectonics: Insights from Indonesia, Geochem. Geophys. Geosyst., 13, Q12008, doi:10.1029/2012GC004417.
  • MacDougall, J. G., K. M. Fischer, and M. L. Anderson (2012), Seismic anisotropy above and below the subducting Nazca lithosphere in southern South America, J. Geophys. Res., 117, B12306, doi:10.1029/2012JB009538.
  • Leon Soto, G., E. Sandvol, J. F. Ni, L. M. Flesch, T. M. Hearn, F. Tilmann, Y. J. Chen, and L. Brown (2012): Significant and vertically coherent seismic anisotropy beneath Eastern Tibet. J. Geophys. Res., doi:10.1029/2011JB008919.
  • Hicks, S. P., Nippress, S. E. J., Rietbrock, A. (2012), Sub-slab mantle anisotropy beneath south-central Chile, Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., 357, 203-213.
  • Miller, M. S., Allam, A. A., Becker, T. W. and Di Leo, J., and Wookey, J. (2013): Constraints on the geodynamic evolution of the westernmost Mediterranean and northwest Africa from shear wave splitting analysis. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., 375, 234-243. (PDF)
  • Refayee, H. A., B. B. Yang, K. H. Liu, and S. S. Gao (2013): Mantle flow and lithosphere-asthenosphere coupling beneath the southwestern edge of the North American Craton: Constraints from shear-wave splitting measurements, Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2013.01.031.
  • Calixto, F. J., D. Robinson, E. Sandvol, S. Kay, D. Abt, K. Fischer, B. Heit, X. Yuan, D. Comte, and P. Alvarado (2014): Shear wave splitting and shear wave splitting tomography of the southern Puna plateau, Geophys. J. Int., 199, 688-699.
  • Porritt, R. W., Becker, T. W., and Monsalve, G. (2014): Seismic anisotropy and slab dynamics from SKS splitting recorded in Colombia. Geophys. Res. Lett., 41, doi:10.1002/2014GL061958. (PDF)
  • Diaz, J. and J. Gallart (2014): Seismic anisotropy from the Variscan core of Iberia to the Western African Craton: New constrains on upper mantle flow at regional scales, Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., 394, 48-57.
  • Bastow I. D, Julia J., do Nascimento A. F., Fuck R.A., Buckthorp, T.L., McClellan, J., J. et al. (2015): Upper mantle anisotropy of the Borborema Province, NE Brazil: Implications for intra-plate deformation and sub-cratonic asthenospheric flow, Tectonophys., 657, 81-93.
  • Bodmer, M., Toomey, D. R., Hooft, E. E., and Braunmiller, J. (2015) Seismic anisotropy beneath the Juan de Fuca plate system: Evidence for heterogeneous mantle flow, Geology, 43, doi:G37181.1.
  • Hodges, Michael, and Meghan S. Miller. Mantle flow at the highly arcuate northeast corner of the Lesser Antilles subduction zone: Constraints from shear-wave splitting analyses. Lithospher, 7, 579-587, 2015.
  • Idarraga-García, J., Kendall, J. .-M. and Vargas, C. A. (2016), Shear wave anisotropy in northwestern South America and its link to the Caribbean and Nazca subduction geodynamics. Geochem. Geophys. Geosyst., doi:10.1002/2016GC006323.
  • S. Subašić, S. Prevolnik, D. Herak, and M. Herak. Observations of SKS splitting beneath the Central and Southern External Dinarides in the Adria-Eurasia convergence zone. Tectonophys., http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tecto.2017.03.027, 2017.
  • McPherson, A. M., Christensen, D. H., Abers, G. A., and Tape, C. (2020). Shear wave splitting and mantle flow beneath Alaska. J. Geophy. Res., 125, e2019JB018329.
  • Estève, C. and P. Audet, A. J. Schaeffer, D. L. Schutt, R. C. Aster, and Joel F. Cubley (2020). Seismic evidence for craton chiseling and displacement of lithospheric mantle by the Tintina fault in the northern Canadian Cordillera. Geology, doi:10.1130/G47688.1.
  • Lucas, E. M., Nyblade, A. A., Accardo, N. J., Lloyd, A. J., Wiens, D. A., Aster, R. C., et al. (2022). Shear wave splitting across Antarctica: Implications for upper mantle seismic anisotropy. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 127, e2021JB023325.
You might want to use Barruol and Wüstefeld's SKS database instead (or the IRIS mirror), which have more complete references to original studies, and a very nice map and search interface. However, our SKS database tries to maintain back-azimuth information.

Database as of Becker et al. (2012)

For reproducibility, we here provide the SKS splitting database that was used for our study on global mantle azimuthal anisotropy:
  • Becker, T. W., Lebedev, S., and Long, M. D.: On the relationship between azimuthal anisotropy from shear wave splitting and tomographic models. J. Geophys. Res., 117, B01306, doi:10.1029/2011JB008705, 2012. (PDF)
Our study included Wuestefeld et al.'s (2009) database in the 05/2011 version, with partially augmented information such as back-azimuths, along with several additional studies, including:
  • Fouch, M.J., and J.D. West (2011): The mantle flow field beneath the western United States, in prep.
  • Civello S., Margheriti L. (2004): Toroidal mantle flow around the Calabrian slab (Italy) from SKS splitting, Geophys. Res. Lett., 31, doi:10.1029/2004GL019607.
After removal of textual exact duplicates, the individual split compilation as of Becker et al. (2012) contained 14,326 entries including nulls. This compilation does hold, however, actual duplicate data entries with different notation (e.g. slight differences in station location accuracy) which are removed in a next step. Moreover, not all original papers provided event information (needed for back-azimuthally-dependent averaging) and only some of the entries in the databases distinguished between individual splits and station-averages. We therefore proceeded to process the original SKS splits by performing a simple, arithmetic average for all (approximately) co-located entries. This yielded 5,159 averaged entries; both data bases are provided for download below:

[news] [research] [teaching] [team] [publications] [CV] [contact]
downloads: [software] [tomography] [visualizations] [global maps]
[SKS compilation] [APM model] [LPO model]
[lecture notes] [papers]

Updated: March 19, 2024. (c) Thorsten Becker, 1997-2024.