The partition of radiated energy between P and S waves

Abstract

Abstract Seventy-three digitally recorded body waves from nine multiply recorded small earthquakes in Monticello, South Carolina, are analyzed to estimate the energy radiated in P and S waves. Assuming Qα = Qβ = 300, the body-wave spectra are corrected for attenuation in the frequency domain, and the velocity power spectra are integrated over frequency to estimate the radiated energy flux. Focal mechanisms determined for the events by fitting the observed displacement pulse areas are used to correct for the radiation patterns. Averaging the results from the nine events gives 27.3 ± 3.3 for the ratio of the S-wave energy to the P-wave energy using 0.5 〈Fi〉 as a lower bound for the radiation pattern corrections, and 23.7 ± 3.0 using no correction for the focal mechanisms. The average shift between the P-wave corner frequency and the S-wave corner frequency, 1.24 ± 0.22, gives the ratio 13.7 ± 7.3. The substantially higher values obtained from the integral technique implies that the P waves in this data set are depleted in energy relative to the S waves. Cursory inspection of the body-wave arrivals suggests that this enervation results from an anomalous site response at two of the stations. Using the ratio of the P-wave moments to the S-wave moments to correct the two integral estimates gives 16.7 and 14.4 for the ratio of the S-wave energy to the P-wave energy.