An Application of Ray-Tracing to Seismic Event Location

摘要

The objective of the study was to determine whether source modeling could improve teleseismic event locations near island arc structures, using models defined by available information about the underthrusting plates of these regions. The authors describe a location method based on ray-tracing, using a crude source region plate model. In the case of the Aleutian-Alaskan region, this method predicts that all teleseismic locations should be shifted along the perpendicular to the Aleutian arc near the source location. The magnitude of the shift is estimated by a method which involves an initial hypocenter estimate, one calibration event anywhere along the island arc, and ray-tracing calculations of time residuals for sources near the estimated hypocenter. The conclusion is that the technique shows promise of being able to remove location bias in island arc structures and should be investigated further. (Author)