Seismic Waves within Earth's Outer Core: Multiple Reflection

Abstract

Seismic waves reflected as many as four times within Earth's outer core are routinely recorded from large earthquakes. Observations of these waves are confined to rays near grazing incidence on the core-mantle boundary, in agreement with theoretical expectation. Minor adjustments to outer-core velocities may be necessary to account for certain of these arrivals that are not predicted by present core models. A change of 10 kilometers or more in the currently accepted core radius, 3473 kilometers, is not corroborated by the new data.