On the recorded motion of the S phase at Florissant*

1952 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-154
Author(s):  
Ross R. Heinrich ◽  
Harry K. Haill

Abstract The initial motions of the P and S phases have been tabulated from the original seismograms of sixty earthquakes which recorded at the Florissant station in the years 1927–1938. The epicenters of these earthquakes were within limited areas of the following regions: the Aleutian Islands, the west-central coast of South America, and Central America. The study indicates that the Florissant seismograms show a preferential direction of motion for both P and S waves in the recordings of certain earthquakes from selected regions. The data compiled on the S phase indicated that a majority of the Aleutian and South American earthquakes recorded a sharp impulsive initial northeast motion at Florissant. The Central American earthquakes studied recorded S phases of somewhat indefinite onset which did not exhibit a preferential motion as they were read. The results of the application of Neumann's method of S-wave analysis to the Saint Louis seismograms of two selected Aleutian Island earthquakes are presented and a brief discussion of some possible structural implications of the various data is given.

2020 ◽  
Vol 221 (3) ◽  
pp. 1765-1776 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jia Wei ◽  
Li-Yun Fu ◽  
Zhi-Wei Wang ◽  
Jing Ba ◽  
José M Carcione

SUMMARY The Lord–Shulman thermoelasticity theory combined with Biot equations of poroelasticity, describes wave dissipation due to fluid and heat flow. This theory avoids an unphysical behaviour of the thermoelastic waves present in the classical theory based on a parabolic heat equation, that is infinite velocity. A plane-wave analysis predicts four propagation modes: the classical P and S waves and two slow waves, namely, the Biot and thermal modes. We obtain the frequency-domain Green's function in homogeneous media as the displacements-temperature solution of the thermo-poroelasticity equations. The numerical examples validate the presence of the wave modes predicted by the plane-wave analysis. The S wave is not affected by heat diffusion, whereas the P wave shows an anelastic behaviour, and the slow modes present a diffusive behaviour depending on the viscosity, frequency and thermoelasticity properties. In heterogeneous media, the P wave undergoes mesoscopic attenuation through energy conversion to the slow modes. The Green's function is useful to study the physics in thermoelastic media and test numerical algorithms.


1958 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 201-219
Author(s):  
Wm. Mansfield Adams

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to determine from the seismograms of a tectonic earthquake the line of the motion which generated the observed S waves (tectonically, the A axis). By noting certain geometrical relationships between the faulting motion and the emitted S waves, it is possible to derive a method which determines the line of the generating motion from observations of the generated S waves. The results of the application of the proposed method of S wave analysis should, theoretically, make it possible to determine which of the two solutions given by the P wave method of analyzing the tectonic mechanism of earthquakes is the correct solution. The proposed procedure is applied to data collected from the original seismograms of four earthquakes as recorded at seismic observatories throughout the world. There is such poor agreement between the S wave results and the previous P wave solutions that it is necessary to conclude that one or more of the following is true: either the mechanism assumed is not the type actually occurring; the phase identified as the S wave does not correspond to the first P wave motion; the P wave method is incorrect or inadequate; or the S wave method is incorrect or inadequate. To select among the various possibilities necessitates a discussion of the relative merits, defects, and potentialities of the two methods.


1960 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 581-597 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Stauder

ABSTRACT Techniques of S wave analysis are used to investigate the focal mechanism of four earthquakes. In all cases the results of the S wave analysis agree with previously determined P wave solutions and conform to a dipole with moment or single couple as the point model of the focus. Further, the data from S waves select one of the two nodal planes of P as the fault plane. Small errors in the determination of the angle of polarization of S are shown to result in scatter in the data of a peculiar character which might lead to misinterpretation. The same methods of analysis which in the present instances show excellent agreement with a dipole with moment source are the methods which in a previous paper required a single force type mechanism for a different group of earthquakes.


1963 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-77
Author(s):  
William Stauder ◽  
Agustin Udias

Abstract The polarization of the S wave at stations distributed azimuthally about the source is examined for each of twenty-five Aleutian Island earthquakes. A combination of data from the first motion of P and from the polarization of S is then used to study the focal mechanisms of the earthquakes. This combination of P and S wave data is found to make possible a good determination of the focal mechanism in cases where data from the first motion of P alone do not suffice. The earthquakes are divided into three groups according to three basic patterns of S wave polarization. The first group (fourteen earthquakes) corresponds to a double couple. The second group (five earthquakes) and the third group (six earthquakes) are conformable to conjugate shears and may therefore be explained by single couple sources of opposite moment, respectively. It is shown that a uniform principal stress system predominates in the region and that the axis of greatest compressive stress is normal to the trend of the island arc.


Geophysics ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Boulfoul ◽  
D. R. Watts

Instantaneous rotations are combined with f-k filtering to extract coherent S‐wave events from multicomponent shot records recorded by British Institutions Reflection Profiling Syndicate (BIRPS) Weardale Integrated S‐wave and P‐wave analysis (WISPA) experiment. This experiment was an attempt to measure the Poisson’s ratio of the lower crest by measuring P‐wave and S‐wave velocities. The multihole explosive source technique did generate S‐waves although not of opposite polarization. Attempts to produce stacks of the S‐wave data are unsuccessful because S‐wave splitting in the near surface produced random polarizations from receiver group to receiver group. The delay between the split wavelets varies but is commonly between 20 to 40 ms for 10 Hz wavelets. Dix hyperbola are produced on shot records after instantaneous rotations are followed by f-k filtering. To extract the instantaneous polarization, the traces are shifted back by the length of a moving window over which the calculation is performed. The instantaneous polarization direction is computed from the shifted data using the maximum eigenvector of the covariance matrix over the computation window. Split S‐waves are separated by the instantaneous rotation of the unshifted traces to the directions of the maximum eigenvectors determined for each position of the moving window. F-K filtering is required because of the presence of mode converted S‐waves and S‐waves produced by the explosive source near the time of detonation. Examples from synthetic data show that the method of instantaneous rotations will completely separate split S‐waves if the length of the moving window over which the calculation is performed is the length of the combined split wavelets. Separation may be achieved on synthetic data for wavelet delays as small as two sample intervals.


1964 ◽  
Vol 54 (6B) ◽  
pp. 2199-2208 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Stauder ◽  
G. A. Bollinger

Abstract The Department of Geophysics of Saint Louis University has instituted a routine program for the determination of the focal mechanism of the larger earthquakes of each year using methods developed for the use of S waves in focal mechanism studies. Suites of records from selected stations are assembled from the WWSS microfilm file for each earthquake of interest. A combination of P-wave first motion and S-wave polarization data is then used to determine graphically the mechanism of the earthquakes. Thirty-six earthquakes of 1962 were selected for study. The focal mechanism solutions are presented for twenty-three of these shocks. There is evidence of patterns characteristic of the focal mechanism of earthquakes occurring in Kamchatka, the Aleutian Islands and South America. A complete presentation of all the data and of all the solutions is available in a more lengthy report.


Author(s):  
Hao Wang ◽  
Ning Li ◽  
Caizhi Wang ◽  
Hongliang Wu ◽  
Peng Liu ◽  
...  

Abstract In the process of dipole-source acoustic far-detection logging, the azimuth of the fracture outside the borehole can be determined with the assumption that the SH–SH wave is stronger than the SV–SV wave. However, in slow formations, the considerable borehole modulation highly complicates the dipole-source radiation of SH and SV waves. A 3D finite-difference time-domain method is used to investigate the responses of the dipole-source reflected shear wave (S–S) in slow formations and explain the relationships between the azimuth characteristics of the S–S wave and the source–receiver offset and the dip angle of the fracture outside the borehole. Results indicate that the SH–SH and SV–SV waves cannot be effectively distinguished by amplitude at some offset ranges under low- and high-fracture dip angle conditions, and the offset ranges are related to formation properties and fracture dip angle. In these cases, the fracture azimuth determined by the amplitude of the S–S wave not only has a $180^\circ $ uncertainty but may also have a $90^\circ $ difference from the actual value. Under these situations, the P–P, S–P and S–S waves can be combined to solve the problem of the $90^\circ $ difference in the azimuth determination of fractures outside the borehole, especially for a low-dip-angle fracture.


1982 ◽  
Vol 72 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-149
Author(s):  
S. W. Roecker ◽  
B. Tucker ◽  
J. King ◽  
D. Hatzfeld

abstract Digital recordings of microearthquake codas from shallow and intermediate depth earthquakes in the Hindu Kush region of Afghanistan were used to determine the attenuation factors of the S-wave coda (Qc) and primary S waves (Qβ). An anomalously rapid decay of the coda shortly after the S-wave arrival, observed also in a study of coda in central Asia by Rautian and Khalturin (1978), seems to be due primarily to depth-dependent variations in Qc. In particular, we deduce the average Qc in the crust and uppermost mantle (<100-km depth) is approximately four times lower than the deeper mantle (<400-km depth) over a wide frequency range (0.4 to 24 Hz). Further, while Qc generally increases with frequency at any depth, the degree of frequency dependence of Qc depends on depth. Except at the highest frequency studied here (∼48 Hz), the magnitude of Qc at a particular frequency increases with depth while its frequency dependence decreases. For similar depths, determinations of Qβ and Qc agree, suggesting a common wave composition and attenuation mechanism for S waves and codas. Comparison of these determinations of Qc in Afghanistan with those in other parts of the world shows that the degree of frequency dependence of Qc correlates with the expected regional heterogeneity. Such a correlation supports the prejudice that Qc is primarily influenced by scattering and suggests that tectonic processes such as folding and faulting are instrumental in creating scattering environments.


1980 ◽  
Vol 70 (2) ◽  
pp. 419-436
Author(s):  
John Boatwright

abstract Employing a new technique for the body-wave analysis of shallow-focus earthquakes, we have made a preliminary analysis of the St. Elias, Alaska earthquake of February 28, 1979, using five long-period P and S waves recorded at three WWSSN stations and at Palisades, New York. Using a well determined focal mechanism and an average source depth of ≈ 11 km, the interference of the depth phases (i.e., pP and sP, or sS) has been deconvolved from the recorded pulse shapes to obtain velocity and displacement pulse shapes as they would appear if the earthquake had occurred within an infinite medium. These “approximate whole space” pulse shapes indicate that the rupture contained three distinct subevents as well as a small initial event which preceded this subevent sequence by about 7 sec. From the pulse rise times of the subevents, their rupture lengths are estimated as 12, 27, and 17 km, assuming that the subevent rupture velocity was 3 km/sec. Overall, the earthquake ruptured ≈ 60 km to the southeast with an average rupture velocity of 2.2 km/sec. The cumulative body-wave moment for the whole event, 1.2 × 1027 dyne-cm, is substantially smaller than the surface-wave moments reported by Lahr et al. (1979) of 5 × 1027 dyne-cm. The moments of the subevents are estimated to be 0.6, 3.2, and 7.5 × 1026 dyne-cm, respectively.


1969 ◽  
Vol 59 (5) ◽  
pp. 1863-1887
Author(s):  
James H. Whitcomb

abstract Array data processing is applied to long-period records of S waves at a network of five Fennoscandian seismograph stations (Uppsala, Umeå, Nurmijärvi, Kongsberg, Copenhagen) with a maximum separation of 1300 km. Records of five earthquakes and one underground explosion are included in the study. The S motion is resolved into SH and SV, and after appropriate time shifts the individual traces are summed, both directly and after weighting. In general, high signal correlation exists among the different stations involved resulting in more accurate time readings, especially for records which have amplitudes that are too small to be read normally. S-wave station residuals correlate with the general crustal type under each station. In addition, the Fennoscandian shield may have a higher SH/SV velocity ratio than the adjacent tectonic area to the northwest.SV-to-P conversion at the base of the crust can seriously interfere with picking the onset of Sin normal record reading. The study demonstrates that, for epicentral distances beyond about 30°, existing networks of seismograph stations can be successfully used for array processing of long-period arrivals, especially the S arrivals.


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