SEISMOLOGY

Harvey Andrés Reascos Recalde

Professor: PhD. Anna Foster

Date: April 19, 2019

LAB 6 – SEISMIC RECORD SECTION

PART A OF THE LAB 6

Exercise 2: Reading and plotting SAC files
The graphs for the seismic records less than 20 degrees of distance.

Figure 1.1 Seismic records for an event of magnitude 7 represented by distance vs. time from
stations located at 20 degrees of distance.
 Figure 2.1 Seismic records for an event of magnitude 7 represented by azimuth vs. time from
stations located at 20 degrees of distance.

Figure Seismic records for an event of magnitude 8.1 represented by azimuth vs. time from
teleseismic stations.

Exercise 3: Thinking about record sections

Answer the following questions.
1. Describe the near-source record section. Are there any stations that look very different?
Do you see clear P wave arrivals? What about the surface waves?
The near source station looks very different in each station. It occurs because each one is nearest
to the source and hence, they receive higher amplitudes at the beginning.
The P-waves are recognized because it doesn’t have high amplitudes and they arrive first to the
station, so the range of the P-wave is showed in figure 1.
The surface waves show high amplitudes and arrive after the P-wave. In figure 1, we can
appreciate the different waves in the seismic record.

Figure 1 P-waves go from red line to blue line. S-waves go from the blue line forward.

2. Describe the teleseismic record section. Are there any stations that look very different?
Do you see clear P wave arrivals? What about the surface waves?
The stations vary because not all have the same recording. It could be because each one is at
different distances from the source. The record in each station depends on distance, and hence,
the bigger amplitudes at the beginning are due to the station is near the source.
The P-waves also start at the beginning of the seismic record because it arrives very fast to the
station.
The S-waves are difficult to see in all stations. It is due to that these waves don’t go far away like
P-wave. And also, the stations are far away from the source.
 Figure 2 P-waves are represented by the red line. S-waves are represented by the blue line
forward.

3. On your teleseismic record section by distance: Can you identify any other phases? Using
a travel time plot from a reference model with phases identified (available in the slides from
class, or use the TauP program, if you like), try to identify at least 4 body wave phases.
Label them on the figure (this doesn’t have to be in Matlab, you can draw on a pdf, for
example).
I can distinguish different waves illustrated in the figure 3.
Figure 3 P-waves represented by red line, yellow line, green line. S-waves represented by blue
line and orange line.

4. Compare your record section by azimuth to the record section by distance for the same
event. Do you notice any trends in amplitude of the waves that are unique to the azimuth
arrangement? To the distance arrangement?
The similar amplitudes in the azimuth graph come together but they don’t present any trend that
are unique.
PART B OF THE LAB6
Exercise 1: Locate the earthquake
Station Latitud Longitu P-time S-time P-S Distance Distance
name e de time (km) (degrees)
JP.JHJ2 33,12 139,81 105 223 118 761 7,61
JP.JSD 38,04 138,26 99 237 138 805 8,05
CB.DL2 38,91 121,63 131 240 109 959 9,59
Table 1. Data for the triangulation to know where is located the earthquake.
Figure 4 The red, black, and pink dots represent the stations. The blue triangle represents the
location of the earthquake.

Exercise 2: Determine Mb and Ms for the data

First, I show you the respective data for the P-wave. Also, the magnitude that corresponds to the
waves.
Station Amplitude P Amplitude P Period ∆ A/T
(microns) (Distance)
CB.DL2 2,06E-04 206,2 12,5 9,59 16,496
CB.GZH 6,73E-05 67,3 6,5 17,59 10,3538461
5
CB.LYN 9,20E-05 92 10 15,3 9,2

CB.SNY 2,15E-04 215,4 26,82 10,68 8,03131991

1
CB.XLT 1,50E-04 150,4 9,5 15,95 15,8315789
5

Body waves
magnitude
7,213278648
7,091001708
 7,016787827
6,911586925
7,259024231

The total magnitude doing a mean is: 7,09 Mw

Station Amplitude Amplitude S Period ∆ A/T

S (microns) (Distance)
CB.DL2 0,00111 1110 19,9 9,59 55,7788945
CB.GZH 0,0001695 169,5 17,8 17,59 9,52247191
CB.LYN 0,000317 317 33,9 15,3 9,35103245

CB.SNY 0,003049 3049 34,5 10,68 88,3768116

CB.XLT 0,000202 202 34,3 15,95 5,88921283

Surface wave
magnitude
6,67628879
6,345890994
6,237447339
6,953766609
6,06663999

The total magnitude doing a mean is: 6,45 Mw

Exercise 3: Focal mechanism