A Discrimination Analysis of Regional Seismic Data Recorded at Tonto Forest Observatory from Nevada Test Site Explosions and Nearby Earthquakes
Abstract
The principal objectives of the research reported here are to identify any diagnostic differences between regional seismic phases produced by earthquakes and underground nuclear explosions and to assess their applicability to events occurring in various regions of the U.S.S.R. Two approaches are used: one employs traditional time-domain amplitude and period measurements to compare the relative excitation of various regional phases for earthquakes and explosions, while the second focuses on more sophisticated measurement or processing techniques such as spectral ratios or narrow-band filtering to extract information about frequency differences in the signals generated by the two types of events. The research reported here was directed at identification of discriminants based on measurements of seismic phases at regional distances from a well-controlled set of Western U.S. explosions and nearby earthquakes. The set includes more than 50 Nevada Test Site events (explosions and nearby earthquakes) recorded at the Tonto Forest Observatory in Arizona. The investigation included spectral analyses of the short-period regional phases, Pn, Pg, and Lg which follows-up a previously reported study of time-domain characteristics of these phases. In addition, the current study includes an analysis of the time-domain characteristics of the long-period data from the Nevada Test Site event set, with particular emphasis on the potential applicability of the Ms/mb discriminant to the identification of small events (mb <or=4.0) for which teleseismic Ms data are not generally available.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 01, 1981
- Accession Number
- ADA114879
Entities
People
- J. R. Murphy
- T. J. Bennett
- T. K. Tzeng
Organizations
- Utility Systems Science and Software (United States)