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Locating Small Aftershocks Using a Small-Aperture Temporary Seismic Array

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Abstract

In this paper, we developed a specialized method to locate small aftershocks using a small-aperture temporary seismic array. The array location technique uses the first P arrival times to determine the horizontal slowness vector of the incoming P wave, then combines it with S–P times to determine the event location. In order to reduce the influence of lateral velocity variation on the location determinations, we generated slowness corrections using events well-located by the permanent broadband network as calibration events, then we applied the corrections to the estimated slownesses. Applications of slowness corrections significantly improved event locations. This method can be a useful tool to locate events recorded by temporary fault-zone arrays in the near field but unlocated by the regional permanent seismic network. As a test, we first applied this method to 64 well-located aftershocks of the 1992 Landers, California, earthquake, recorded by both the Caltech/USGS Southern California Seismic Network and a small-aperture, temporary seismic array. The average horizontal and vertical separations between our locations and the well-determined catalogue locations are 1.35 and 1.75 km, respectively. We then applied this method to 132 unlocated aftershocks recorded only by the temporary seismic array. The locations show a clear tendency to follow the surface traces of the mainshock rupture.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Zhigang Peng and Yong-Gang Li for providing the data. We are thankful to the editor Brian J. Mitchell and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments to improve the manuscript. This material is based upon work supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant No.EAR-0609969 and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities under Grant No. 2010ZD06.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Geo-detection, Ministry of Education, China University of Geosciences, Beijing, 100083, China

    Hongyi Li

  2. School of Geophysics and Information Technology, China University of Geosciences, Beijing, 100083, China

    Hongyi Li

  3. Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Saint Louis University, St Louis, MO, 63108, USA

    Lupei Zhu

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  1. Hongyi Li
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  2. Lupei Zhu
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Correspondence to Hongyi Li.

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Li, H., Zhu, L. Locating Small Aftershocks Using a Small-Aperture Temporary Seismic Array. Pure Appl. Geophys. 168, 1707–1714 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00024-010-0213-y

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