Southern California Hypocenter Relocation with Waveform Cross-Correlation, Part 2: Results Using Source-Specific Station Terms and Cluster Analysis

Abstract

We obtain precise relative relocations for more than 340,000 southern California earthquakes between 1984 and 2002 by applying the source-specific station-term (ssst) method to existing P- and S-phase picks and a differential location method to about 208,000 events within similar-event clusters identified with waveform cross-correlation. The entire catalog is first relocated by using existing phase picks, a reference 1D velocity model, and the ssst method of Richards-Dinger and Shearer (2000). We also perform separate relocations of Imperial Valley events by using a velocity model more suited to this region. Next, we apply cluster analysis to the waveform cross-correlation output to identify similar-event clusters. We relocate earthquakes within each similar-event cluster by using the differential times alone, keeping the cluster centroid fixed to its initial ssst location. We estimate standard errors for the relative locations from the internal consistency of differential locations between individual event pairs; these errors are often as small as tens of meters. In many cases the relocated events within each similar-event cluster align in planar features suggestive of faults. We observe a surprising number of such faults at small scales that strike nearly perpendicular to the main seismicity trends. In general, the fine-scale details of the seismicity reveal a great deal of structural complexity in southern California fault systems.