Constraining Earthquake Source Properties Based on Array Waveform Coherency

Ever since the deployment of large regional seismic arrays (e.g. USArray), numerous contributions have been made to develop refined structural models of the Earth’s interior. However the dataset has not been explored in earthquake source studies except back-projections of large earthquakes. Waveform coherence across a seismic array is crucial for back-projection earthquake source imaging. While previous studies indicate waveform coherency decays dramatically with distance and frequency, their adoption of time windows with fixed duration may naturally degrade the coherence at high frequency. In this study, we measure the correlation coefficients of teleseismic waveforms recorded by USArray using window lengths proportional to 1/frequency.

Based on the coherency curve of USArray as a function of interstation distance, we may constrain earthquake source properties through data-mining. Preliminary results show that the coherency is high across the USArray over inter-station distances >10 wavelengths and up to 5 Hz. The coherence of large/shallow earthquakes decays faster with distance than small/deep earthquakes. For the same earthquake, coherence falls slower along the ray-path than across it. One possible explanation for such patterns is finite source effect including scattering near the source. We seek to systematically measure the waveform coherency of earthquakes of different properties, for example, magnitude, focal depth, faulting type, rupture size and aspect ratio, some of which are hard to resolve with conventional observations. By establishing a multi-variable dependence of the source properties on the USArray coherence, we may reduce the scattering of stress drop calculation and constrain other source properties that are difficult to be determined by conventional approaches. Such new observations may shed light on the long-stand debate of earthquake self-similarity.