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Global stacks of receiver functions clearly exhibit the upper mantle stratification. Besides the most prominent seismic discontinuities, such as the Moho and the 410 and 660 km discontinuities, a negative discontinuity is detected at a depth of~600 km, indicating a low-velocity layer at the base of the mantle transition zone. The slant-slack technique helps to identify the primary conversions from the multiple reverberations. Presence of the negative 600 km discontinuity underneath both continent and ocean island stations, where the crustal thickness significantly differs, also precludes the possible cause of crustal reverberations. We conclude that the negative 600 km discontinuity could be a global feature, possibly resulted from accumulation of ancient subducted oceanic crust. The X-discontinuity at 300 km depth is also observed in our global stacks, which can be explained by the coesite-stishovite phase transformation.

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Detailed seismic structure in the crust beneath the northeastern margin of Tibetan Plateau was revealed by receiver functions of a regional permanent seismic network. At most stations, negative P-to-S converted phases can be detected in the radial receiver functions, prior to the Moho phases, indicating low velocities in the midlower crust. Prominent azimuthal variations in the transverse receiver functions with polarity reversal suggest azimuthal anisotropy in the crust. We used time variations of the P-to-S converted phases at the Moho in the radial receiver functions and the azimuth-weighted stacking of transverse receiver functions to determine the fast direction and magnitude of anisotropy. The low-velocity midlower crust with the coherent azimuthal anisotropy in the northeastern margin of Tibetan Plateau is consistent with the lower crustal channel flow model.

We used teleseismic body waves recorded at stations of the Chinese Center of Digital Seismic Network to map the upper mantle discontinuities beneath continental China. The CRUST2.0 and an S-tomography model beneath each station were combined with the one-dimensional tracing method to convert time series of radial receiver functions to depth series. Clear signatures corresponding to the 410-and 660-km discontinuities ('410' and '660') are visible at almost all of the stations. The average S velocity contrast of '410' beneath the study area is close to the global average, but that for '660' is smaller than the global average. The average depth of '410' is 413 km, and the peak-to-peak topography is about 36 km, with regional depressions that correlate with the Datong quaternary volcano in northern China. The '660' topography exhibits a peak-to-peak variation of about 43 km, and its average depth is 669 km; the depressions of the '660' in northeastern, southeastern and northern China are well correlated with the past subduction around the Pacific Ocean and Philippine Sea. The width of the transition zone is also increased in the region with the deeper '660'. Our results would appear to indicate that there may be a low-velocity layer below a depth of approximately 600 km that may be the accumulated garnetite layer of an ancient crust above the '660'.

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