Moment Tensor Analysis of Shallow Sources

Abstract:

A potential issue for moment tensor inversion of shallow seismic sources is that some moment tensor components have vanishing amplitudes at the free surface, which can result in bias in the moment tensor solution. The effects of the free-surface on the stability of the moment tensor method becomes important as we continue to investigate and improve the capabilities of regional full moment tensor inversion for source-type identification and discrimination. It is important to understand these free surface effects on discriminating shallow explosive sources for nuclear monitoring purposes. It may also be important in natural systems that have shallow seismicity such as volcanoes and geothermal systems. In this study, we apply the moment tensor based discrimination method to the HUMMING ALBATROSS quarry blasts. These shallow chemical explosions at approximately 10 m depth and recorded up to several kilometers distance represent rather severe source-station geometry in terms of vanishing traction issues. We show that the method is capable of recovering a predominantly explosive source mechanism, and the combined waveform and first motion method enables the unique discrimination of these events. Recovering the correct yield using seismic moment estimates from moment tensor inversion remains challenging but we can begin to put error bounds on our moment estimates using the NSS technique.