Testing the splitting intensity methodology to retrieve average, dipping, and depth dependent anisotropy from a complex subduction model

<p align="justify">Seismic anisotropy measurements provide a lot of information on the deformation and structure of the Earth&#8217;s interior, in particular of the upper mantle. Conventional methods of measurement of anisotropy have their limitations, especially regarding depth resolution. Splitting intensity (SI) is a seismic observable, related to the amount of energy on the transverse component waveform and, to a first order, it is linearly related to the elastic perturbations of the medium through the 3-D sensitivity kernels, that can be therefore inverted, allowing a high-resolution image of the upper-mantle anisotropy. Starting from synthetic SKS waveforms, we first derived high-quality SKS splitting intensity measurements; then we used the splitting intensity data as input into tomographic inversion. This approach enables high&#8208;resolution tomographic images of horizontal upper&#8208;mantle anisotropy through recovering vertical and lateral changes in anisotropy and represents a propaedeutic step to the real cases of subduction settings. Additionally, this approach was able to detect regions of strong dipping anisotropy by allowing a 360&#176; periodic dependence of the splitting vector. Single and thick layers of dipping angles between 30 and 60&#176; are clearly represented with a high dt₂ value, while double layers or nearly vertical dips are more difficult to identify.</p>