Time-Dependent Moment Tensors of the First Four Source Physics Experiments (SPE) Explosions

Abstract:

We use mainly vertical-component geophone data within 2 km from the epicenter to invert for time-dependent moment tensors of the first four SPE explosions: SPE-1, SPE-2, SPE-3 and SPE-4Prime. We employ a one-dimensional (1D) velocity model developed from P- and Rg-wave travel times for Green’s function calculations. The attenuation structure of the model is developed from P- and Rg-wave amplitudes. We select data for the inversion based on the criterion that they show consistent travel times and amplitude behavior as those predicted by the 1D model. Due to limited azimuthal coverage of the sources and the mostly vertical-component-only nature of the dataset, only long-period, diagonal components of the moment tensors are well constrained. Nevertheless, the moment tensors, particularly their isotropic components, provide reasonable estimates of the long-period source amplitudes as well as estimates of corner frequencies, albeit with larger uncertainties. The estimated corner frequencies, however, are consistent with estimates from ratios of seismogram spectra from different explosions. These long-period source amplitudes and corner frequencies cannot be fit by classical P-wave explosion source models. The results motivate the development of new P-wave source models suitable for these chemical explosions. To that end, we fit inverted moment-tensor spectra by modifying the classical explosion model using regressions of estimated source parameters. Although the number of data points used in the regression is small, the approach suggests a way for the new-model development when more data are collected.