Abstract
There are potential benefits from the addition of 3-C rotational motions
to traditional 3-C translational displacements for moment tensor (MT)
inversions. The rotational radiation pattern is orthogonal to the shear
radiation pattern, thus incorporating rotations is equivalent to gaining
another observation point on the focal sphere. We demonstrate this by
simulating the curl and displacement wavefields in a half-space for a
regional distance station. We also demonstrate the effect of velocity
gradients beneath a station on rotational motions compared to
displacements. Further investigation is needed to study how this affects
the MT inversion. We added rotational Greens functions to regional
long-period MT inversion computing spatial gradients from f-
reflectivity synthetics. We used array derived rotational motions from
the Piñon Flats Observatory Array in California and Golay arrays
deployed during the IRIS Community Wavefield Demonstration Experiment in
Oklahoma. Well-constrained MT solutions were estimated for three
earthquakes using long-period regional waves with and without rotational
ground motions as test cases. Prepared by LLNL under Contract
DE-AC52-07NA27344. This work was performed under the auspices of the
U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344. LLNL release number LLNL-ABS-781439.
Index Terms: 7215 Earthquake source observations, 7290 Computational
seismology Plain-Language Summary Scientists have traditionally used
seismometers to record earthquake generated translational ground motions
using three-dimensional axes typically oriented in a vertical,
north-south and east-west directions in other words a “Cartesian
coordinate system”. Recent advancements in seismometer development for
recording rotational or twisting ground motions about the same
three-axes provide additional information, which, in addition to
translational seismometers can help resolve the radiation patterns of
quakes. In cases where physical access is limited, the sparse
distribution of seismometers caused by, for example, ocean coasts,
islands, Lunar, and Mars surfaces can prevent the complete observation
of the quake radiation pattern. The combination of these two types of
seismometers at a single point are useful to infer faulting mechanisms
of quakes or other seismic source types than using just one seismometer.
Submitted to American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, San Francisco, CA
9-13 December 2019. S032 – Rotation and Strain in Seismology –
Applications, Instrumentation and Theory S21G-0589