AusArray: quality passive seismic data to underpin updatable national velocity models of the lithosphere

To improve exploration success undercover, the UNCOVER initiative identified high-resolution 3D seismic velocity characterisation of the Australian plate as a high priority. To achieve this goal, the Australian Government and academia have united around the Australian Passive Seismic Array Project (AusArray). The aim is to obtain a national half-degree data coverage and an updatable 3D national velocity model, which grows in resolution as more data become available. AusArray combines data collected from the Australian National Seismological Network (ANSN), multiple academic transportable arrays (supported by AuScope and individual grants) and the Seismometers in Schools program. The Exploring for the Future program has enable the unification of these datasets and a doubling of the national rate of data acquisition. Extensive quality control checks have been applied across the AusArray dataset to improve the robustness of subsequent tomographic inversion and interpretation. These data and inversion code framework allow robust national-scale imaging of the Earth to be rapidly undertaken at depths of a few metres to hundreds of kilometres.Broadband seismic imaging of the Australian continent began in the early 1990s, with the deployment of movable seismic arrays such as SKIPPY (van der Hilst et al., 1994; Zielhuis and van der Hilst, 1996). During the past three decades, a number of passive seismic experiments have been successfully carried out. The Australian National University (ANU) Seismology and Mathematical Geophysics group has since deployed a number of independent passive seismological arrays in remote …