Regional Seismic Identification Research:Processing, Transportability and Source Models

Our identification research for the past several years has focused on the problem of correctly discriminating small-magnitude explosions from a background of earthquakes, mining tremors, and other events. Small magnitudes lead to an emphasis on regional waveforms. It has been shown that at each test site where earthquake and explosions are in close proximity and recorded at the same station, clear differences in the regional body waves such as the relative high frequency amplitudes of P and S waves can be used to discriminate between event types. However path and source effects can also induce such differences, therefore these must be quantified and accounted for. We have been using a specific technique called Magnitude and Distance Amplitude Correction (MDAC), with some success to account for some of these effects.