Surface waves in multilayered elastic media. I. Rayleigh and Love waves from buried sources in a multilayered elastic half-space

Abstract

A matrix formulation is used to derive integral expressions for the time transformed displacement fields produced by simple sources at any depth in a multilayered elastic isotropic solid half-space. The integrals are evaluated for their residue contribution to obtain surface wave displacements in the frequency domain. The solutions are then generalized to include the effect of a surface liquid layer. The theory includes the effect of layering and source depth for the following: (1) Rayleigh waves from an explosive source, (2) Rayleigh waves from a vertical point force, (3) Rayleigh and Love waves from a vertical strike slip fault model. The latter source also includes the effect of fault dimensions and rupture velocity. From these results we are able to show certain reciprocity relations for surface waves which had been previously proved for the total displacement field. The theory presented here lays the ground work for later papers in which theoretical seismograms are compared with observations in both the time and frequency domain.