Fses L3

Seismic Sources and Source
Parameters
Prepared by E. Chikalamo
Seismic sources and source Parameters
• Seismic waves are oscillations due to elastic deformations

which propagate through the Earth and can be recorded by
seismic sensors and data acquisition systems.
• The seismic moment and seismic energy released by these
sources may cover a tremendous range of magnitudes.
• The greater the distance the waves must travel from the
source to the detectors the greater is the energy required to
counter the effects of attenuation
Cont’d
• A seismic source’s ultimate function is to deform the
Earth and generate elastic waves.
• The most common seismic sources for land surveys are
explosives, impact devices and a vibrating impact
technology known as Vibroseis
• Explosives and impact devices produce a short duration
pulse of energy
Why study physical processes of seismic
sources
a) Understanding of tectonics
b) Improving assessment of seismic hazard or
discriminating between natural and anthropogenic
events.
EARTHQUAKE CLASSIFICATION
MAGNITUDE CLASSIFICATION
M ≥ 8.0 Great Earthquake
7.0 ≥ M < 8.0 Major / Large Earthquake
5.0 ≥ M < 7.0 Moderate Earthquake
3.0 ≥ M < 5.0 Small Earthquake
1.0 ≥ M < 3.0 Microearthquake
M < 1.0 Ultra Microearthquake
Nature of Earthquakes
• Foreshocks
• Main shock
• Aftershocks
• Earthquake Swarm
• Normal Seismic activity
Types of seismic sources
Tectonic earthquakes
• Caused when the brittle part of the Earth’s crust is subjected to
stress that exceeds its breaking strength.
• Sudden rupture will occur, mostly along pre-existing faults or
sometimes along newly formed faults.
• Rocks on each side of the rupture "snap" into a new position.
• For very large earthquakes, the length of the ruptured zone may
be as much as 1000 km and the slip along the fault can reach
several meters, sometimes even over a decameter.
Causes of Tectonic Earthquakes
• The break-up of the lithosphere into plates due to deformation and
stress loading.
• The plates are driven, pushed and pulled by the slow motion of
convection currents in the more plastic hot material of the mantle
beneath the lithosphere.
• Shallow earthquakes, within the upper part of the crust, take place
mainly at plate boundaries but may also occur inside plates (interplate
and intraplate earthquakes, respectively).
• Intermediate (down to about 300 km) and deep earthquakes (down
to a maximum of 700 km depth) occur under ocean trenches and
related subduction zones where the lithosphere plates are thrusted or
pulled down into the upper mantle.
Distribution of Earthquakes
• Most earthquakes occur along the main plate boundaries.
• These boundaries constitute either zones
a) Extension e.g., in the up-welling zones of the mid-oceanic ridges or
intra-plate rifts.
b) Transcurrent shear zones e.g., the San Andreas fault in the west coast
of North America or the North Anatolian fault in Turkey
c) Zones of plate collision (e.g., the Himalayan thrust front) or zones of
subduction mostly along deep sea trenches.
• Accordingly, tectonic earthquakes may be associated with many
different faulting types: strike-slip, normal, reverse, thrust faulting
or mixed
Volcanic Earthquakes
• Mostly produced in conjunction with subsurface magma flows
• Are of the tremor type, i.e., long-lasting and more or less
monochromatic oscillations which come from a two- or three-
phase (liquid- and/or gas-solid) source process which is not
narrowly localized in space and time.
• They can not be analyzed in the traditional way of seismic
recordings from tectonic earthquakes or explosions nor be
described with traditional source parameters.
• Volcanic earthquakes contribute only an insignificant amount to
the global seismic moment release
Explosions, implosions and other seismic
events
• Explosions are mostly anthropogenic, i.e., “man-made”, and
controlled, i.e., with known location and source time.
• However, strong natural explosions in conjunction with volcanic
eruptions or meteorite impacts, such as the Tunguska meteorite
of 30 June 1908 in Siberia or the Chelyabinsk/Ural meteorite
impact on 15 February 2013 may also occur.
• Explosions are expected to produce an outward directed
compressional first motion in all directions while tectonic
earthquakes produce first motions of different amplitude and
polarity in different directions
Cont’d
• Compared to tectonic earthquakes, the duration of the source
process of explosions and the rise time to the maximum level of
displacement is much shorter and more impulsive
Rockfalls
• Rock falls may last for several minutes and cause seismic
waves but generally with less distinct onsets and less
separation of wave groups.
• The collapse of karst caves, mining induced rock bursts
or collapses of mining galleries are generally of an
implosion type.
• Accordingly, their first motion patterns should show
dilatations in all azimuths if a secondary tectonic event
has not been triggered by the collapse.
Cont’d
• The strongest events may reach magnitudes up to about
M = 5.5 and be recorded world-wide (e.g., Bormann et
al., 1992).
• Reservoir induced earthquakes have been frequently
observed in conjunction with the impoundment of
water or rapid water level changes behind large dams.
• Since these events are triggered along pre-existing and
pre-stressed tectonic faults they show the typical polarity
patterns of tectonic earthquakes.
• The strongest events reported so far have reached
magnitudes up to 6.5 (e.g., Koyna earthquake in 1967).
Microseisms and seismic noise
• Microseisms are seismic signals produced by storms over

oceans or large water basins (seas, lakes, reservoirs) as well as by
wind action on topography, vegetation or built-up surface cover.
• Seismic noise are seismic signals due to human activities such
as rotating or hammering machinery, traffic etc .
• They are neither well localized in space nor fixed to a defined
origin time.
• They produce more or less permanent on-going non-coherent
interfering signals of more or less random amplitude
fluctuations in a very wide frequency range.
Cont’d
• Despite the large range of ambient noise displacement
amplitudes they are generally much smaller than those
of earthquakes and not felt by people.
Classification of Earthquakes
CLASSIFICATION DISTANCE
1) Teleseismic Earthquake > 1000 km

2) Regional Earthquake > 500 km
3) Local Earthquake < 500 km
Seismic Source Parameters
1. Macroseismic intensity (I): Intensity describes
the strength of shaking in terms of human
perception, damage to buildings and other
structures, as well as changes in the surrounding
environment.
• ‘I’ depends on the distance from the source and
the soil conditions and is mostly classified
according to macroseismic scales of 12 degrees.
• ‘I’ is best correlated with local magnitude
Magnitude and early relationships to
seismic energy
• Magnitude is a logarithmic measure of the size of an
earthquake or explosion based on instrumental
measurements.
• Magnitudes are commonly derived from ground motion
amplitudes and periods or from signal duration
measured on instrumental records.
• There is no a priori scale limitation to magnitudes as it
exists for macroseismic intensity scales.
Geometrical and physical parameters of
describing seismic sources
• Location of initial rupture
• Orientation of the fault plane and slip
• Fault length
• Rupture area
• Amount of slip
• Magnitude
• Seismic moment
• Radiated energy
Cont’d
• Stress drop
• Duration and time history of faulting
• Particle velocity
• Acceleration of fault velocity
Frequency-magnitude Analysis
• Following studies by Richter (1935) it has been revealed

that earthquakes are not uniformly distributed in time,
space and magnitude.
• Distribution of earthquakes with respect to magnitudes
exhibits scale invariability and obeys a power law
log N = a - bM
Frequency-magnitude
magnitude-frequency relationship
• ‘log N = a – bM’ is also known as the Gutenberg-
Richter(G-R) magnitude frequency relationship.
• It describes the distribution of earthquakes with respect
to magnitude for specified regions at a specific time.
• ‘N’ is the number of earthquakes and M is Magnitude
• ‘a’ describes the seismic activity. It is determined by the
event rate and for a region it depends on the volume
and time window considered.
Cont’d
• ‘b’ is a tectonic parameter describing the relative
abundance of large to smaller earthquake and its usually
close to 1.
• b-value has some applications in seismic studies
Deviations from Linearity and Variations
• The linear relation between M and N holds only for
magnitudes in a certain range
• For small and large (M~7.3 and larger) magnitudes, the
frequency decreases more rapidly than linearly and
consequently a non-linear fit may in some cases be a
better approximation of observed data
Causes of deviations
• At small magnitudes, it is the incompleteness of data (catalogs)
• At large magnitudes, it is the saturation of magnitude scales, in other
words a problem associated with the way magnitudes are measured.
• Another reason is the length of available catalogs (they are often too
short) with missing rarer large earthquakes.
• Hence, calculated magnitudes cannot cope with the most energetic
earthquakes and catalogs often cover too short a period to yield an
accurate count of larger events.
• In general, recurrence times beyond the time span of data (catalog)
should be treated with caution.
Practical b-Value Evaluation
• Uniform magnitudes must be available.
• For global/regional catalogs, we prefer to use the surface-wave
magnitude, If data include also intermediate- and deep-focus events,
body-wave magnitude has to be used.
• When processing catalogs with large events (M≥7), we prefer to
work with moment magnitudes to circumvent the saturation effects.
• In local catalogs (mining areas water reservoirs, construction sites) a
local magnitude, will be used.
• It is important that reported magnitudes are homogeneous
throughout the whole catalog.
Cont’d
• Time span of the catalog must be at least comparable and possibly
larger than the return period of the largest expected event.
• Depending upon the type of the study, it may be desirable to
generate sub-catalogs corresponding to geographic sub-regions with
different specific (e.g. tectonic) characteristics. Each sub-catalog is
treated separately.
• To guarantee the completeness of data, analysis will comprise only
events with magnitudes equal to or larger than the threshold
magnitude. This can be determined from G-R diagrams by eye or
more objectively by taking the derivative of the G-R diagrams.
Cont’d
• To avoid dependent data, the catalog has to be de-clustered by
deleting all foreshocks and aftershocks. Obviously, this step is
usually relevant merely for global/regional catalogs comprising
large events with long aftershock/foreshock series
• It is always desirable that the catalog covers a large span of
magnitudes. A span of three or more magnitude units is usually
required.
• Consistent observatory operations during the period of review
are prerequisite
Cont’d
• In some special studies it is needed to examine the temporal data
stability or stationarity (usually when studying space variations of
b).
• Original data are separated into several sub-sets for different
time periods and evaluated separately.

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Seismic Sources and Source

• Seismic waves are oscillations due to elastic deformations

• Microseisms are seismic signals produced by storms over

1) Teleseismic Earthquake > 1000 km

• Following studies by Richter (1935) it has been revealed

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