First motions from seismic sources near a free surface

Abstract

The radiation patterns of first motions are calculated for the sudden occurrence of an arbitrarily oriented fault (dislocation) at the surface of a half space; the dislocation in the fault plane is also arbitrarily oriented and is assumed to occur over a very small area of the fault plane. Initially the source is considered at a finite depth and the solution is obtained by allowing the depth to tend to zero. In general the results show a surprising directionality for the radiation of SV. In the focal plane projection the first motions of P and SH for a strike-slip fault show the familiar four-lobed radiation patterns. The first motions of SV show some reversals in polarity with angular distance from the source. The first motions for all components of motion for a dip-slip fault have characteristics governed strongly by the presence of the free surface, and hence differ markedly from the usual radiation patterns for a deeply imbedded source.