Double-Difference Earthquake Locations Using imaging Magma Under St. Helens (iMUSH) Data

Abstract:

The imaging Magma Under St. Helens (iMUSH) project deployed a magnetotelluric survey, high-resolution active-source experiment, two-year passive-source experiment, and gathered geochemical-petrological data to better understand the magmatic architecture of Mount St. Helens. A primary goal of the passive source experiment is to create 3-D P-wave and S-wave velocity models under the volcano from the surface to the slab. We use hypoDD, a double-difference algorithm, to gain high-precision relative earthquake locations for several hundred events within tens of kilometers of the Mount St. Helens crater. We use data from the first half (2014 June- 2015 July) of the two-year passive-source component of the iMUSH array recording six hundred useable earthquakes with a high-event density near the volcanic crater. The array includes seventy evenly-spaced broadband seismometers continuously sampling at 50 Hz within a 50 km radius of Mount St. Helens, and is augmented by dozens of permanent network stations. Precise relative earthquake locations are determined for spatially clustered hypocenters using a combination of hand picked P-wave arrivals and high-precision relative times determined by cross correlation of waveforms recorded at a common station for event pairs using a 1-D velocity structure. These high-quality relative times will be used to help constrain seismic tomography models as well. We will interrupt earthquake clusters in the context of emerging 3-D wave-speed models from the active-source and passive-source observations. We are examining the relationship between hypocentral locations and regions of partial melt, as well as the relationship between hypocentral locations and the NNW-SSE trending Saint Helens seismic Zone.