A Student’s Guide to and Review of Moment Tensors

A review of a moment tensor for describing a general seismic point source is presented to show a second order moment tensor can be related to simpler seismic source descriptions such as centers of expansion and double couples. A review of literature is followed by detailed algebraic expansions of the moment tensor into isotropic and deviatoric components. Specific numerical examples are provided in the appendices for use in testing algorithms for moment tensor decomposition.

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