Seismic Waves Attenuation

SEISMIC
WAVES
ATTENUATE DECREASE IN
AMPLITUDE AS THEY
PROPAGATE
(S&W 3.7)
Important for
earth physics,
understanding
earthquake
size, and
seismic hazard
MODIFIED
MERCALLI
INTENSITY SCALE
Macroscopic
measure of
shaking
Estimated for
historic
earthquakes from
accounts of what
happened
Plot isoseismals intensity contours
Decays with
distance
Proportional to
acceleration,
details unclear
0.2 g
Damage
onset for
modern
buildings
EARTHQUAKE MAGNITUDE
Earliest measure of earthquake
size
Dimensionless number
measured various ways,
including
ML local magnitude
mb body wave magnitude
Ms surface wave magnitude
Mw moment magnitude
Easy to measure
No direct tie to physics of
faulting
CONSEQUENCES OF SHAKING DIFFERENCES

Northridge, M 6.7, was the costliest disaster in U.S. history with economic loss of $40 billion.
In contrast, loss in Nisqually earthquake is ~$2 billion. One death, a heart attack victim,
reported in Seattle area, while 57 people died in the Northridge earthquake.
NISQUALLY EARTHQUAKE
Focal depth 58 km; in subducting Juan
de Fuca plate
NORTHRIDGE EARHQUAKE
Focal depth 18 km; Los
Angeles Basin shortening
AFTERSHOCKS
Kirby et al., 1996
REFLECTION AND TRANSMISSION OF SEISMIC WAVES AT DISCRETE

INTERFACES REDUCE THEIR AMPLITUDES.
FOUR OTHER PROCESSES ALSO REDUCE WAVE AMPLITUDES:
- GEOMETRICAL SPREADING
- SCATTERING
- MULTIPATHING
-ANELASTICITY
THE FIRST THREE ARE ELASTIC PROCESSES, IN WHICH
THE ENERGY IN THE PROPAGATING WAVE FIELD IS CONSERVED.
IN CONTRAST, ANELASTICITY, SOMETIMES CALLED INTRINSIC
ATTENUATION, INVOLVES CONVERSION OF SEISMIC ENERGY TO HEAT.
ANALOGOUS BEHAVIORS FOR LIGHT
AS YOU MOVE AWAY FROM A STREET LAMP AT NIGHT, THE LIGHT

APPEARS DIMMER FOR SEVERAL REASONS
1) Geometric spreading: light moves
outward from lamp in expanding
spherical wave fronts. By conservation
of energy, the energy in a unit area of
the growing wave front decreases as r-2,
where r is the radius of the sphere or
distance from the lamp.
2) Scattering: light dims as it is scattered

by air molecules, dust, and water in the air.
Scattering results when objects acting as
Huygens' sources scatter energy in all
directions. This effect is dramatic on a
foggy night because scattered light causes
a halo around the lamp.
3) Light is focused or defocused by changes in

the refractive properties of the air. This process
causes mirages, where light is refracted
differently by hot air just above the ground.
Similarly the distorted appearance of the
setting sun results from seeing different parts
of it through different levels of the atmosphere
which refract light differently because of the
vertical density gradient.
This effect is termed multipathing in
seismology. Focusing and defocusing can be
illustrated by looking at the street light through
binoculars. Looking through binoculars the
usual way, the waves are focused by the
lenses, and the lamp appears closer and
brighter. Reversing the binoculars makes the
lamp appear further and dimmer.
4) Some light energy is absorbed by the air and converted to heat. This
process differs from the other three in that light energy is actually lost, not
just moved onto a different path.
ALL FOUR PROCESSES ARE IMPORTANT FOR SEISMIC WAVES.

The first three are described by elastic wave theory, and can increase or
decrease an arrival's amplitude by shifting energy within the wave field.
In contrast, anelasticity only reduces wave amplitudes because energy is
lost from the elastic waves.
So much of seismology is built upon the approximation that the earth
responds elastically during seismic propagation that it is easy to forget that
the earth is not
perfectly elastic.
However, without anelasticity seismic waves from every earthquake that
ever occurred would still be reverberating until the accumulating
reverberations shattered the earth.
Elasticity is a good approximation for the earth's response to seismic waves,
but there are many important implications and applications of anelasticity.
GEOMETRIC SPREADING:
SURFACE WAVES
Expect minimum at =90, and maxima at 0 and 180
From geometric
spreading alone,
expect minimum at
=90, and maxima
at 0 and 180
Also have effects
of anelasticity
GEOMETRIC SPREADING: BODY WAVES

For body waves, consider a spherical wavefront moving away from a deep
earthquake. Energy is conserved on the expanding spherical wavefront
whose area is 4 r 2, where r is the radius of the wavefront.
Thus the energy per unit wave front decays as 1 / r2, and the amplitude
decreases as 1 / r
In reality, because body waves travel through an inhomogeneous earth, their

amplitude depends on the focusing and defocusing of rays by the velocity
structure.
MULTIPATHING
Seismic waves are focused and defocused by lateral variations in velocity.
Although physically this process is the same as the effects of vertical
variations, it is often distinguished by the term multipathing.
The distinction reflects our view of the earth as an essentially layered planet
with secondary lateral variations.
TRACE RAY
PATHS USING
SNELLS LAW
RAYS BEND
AS WATER
DEPTH
CHANGES
FIND WHEN
WAVES
ARRIVE AT
DIFFERENT
PLACES
DENSITY OF
WAVES
SHOWS
FOCUSING &
DEFOCUSING
1 hour
Woods & Okal, 1987
When multipathing occurs, seismic waves arriving at a receiver can be viewed

as having taken ray paths in addition to the direct path, and so sampled a
larger region of the earth.
Fermat's principle giving the geometric ray path applies exactly only to waves
of infinite frequency. For waves of finite frequency, we view the seismic
waveform as a coherent sum of energy that travels all possible paths that
arrive within a half-period of the infinite frequency wave, which took the
shortest time. These paths form a volume called the first Fresnel zone around
the infinite-frequency path. Successive half periods correspond to higher order
Fresnel zones.
Whether effects of velocity heterogeneity

are regarded as scattering depends on
the ratio of heterogeneity size to the
wavelength and the distance the wave
travels in the heterogeneous region.
When the heterogeneity is large

compared to the wavelength, we regard
the wave as following a distinct ray path
distorted by multipathing.
When velocity heterogeneities are close
in size to the wavelength, we think of
scattered energy rather than distinct ray
paths.
When heterogeneities are << than the
wavelength, they simply change the
medium's overall properties. The further
the wave travels in the heterogeneous
region, the more useful the scattering
description becomes. Hence for longer
distances, the wavelength range viewed
as scattering increases.
a = size of heterogeneity
L = distance wave travels

= wavelength
The fact that light scattering in the

atmosphere depends on wavelength
and the distance traveled has familiar
consequences. Because the shortest
wavelengths of visible light are the
most scattered, blue light reaching us
from all directions makes the sky
appear blue.
The loss of blue light makes the sun
appear yellow, although it would
appear white if observed from a
spacecraft.
At sunset, when the sunlight passes
through a longer path in the
atmosphere than at other hours,
intermediate wavelengths are also
scattered, leaving direct light from the
sun enhanced in the longest visible
wavelengths (red light) and making
the sun appear red.
The unscattered wave travels the shortest distance and gives the initial arrival.
Scattered energy lost from this arrival arrives later & could have been scattered from
an infinite number of locations that yield the observed travel time. In a constantvelocity medium, the locus of possible scatterers is an ellipsoid with the source and
receiver as foci. Larger ellipsoids define the possible scatterers for energy that
arrives later. These ellipsoids are distorted by velocity heterogeneity and are
analogous to the Fresnel volume used when we consider the waves as following
distinct ray paths.
The terrestrial record

shows high attenuation,
whereas the lunar
seismogram shows intense
scattering due to the
fractured regolith and very
weak attenuation due to the
lack of intergranular water
SUMATRA
EARTHQUAKE:
ANALYZE NORMAL
MODE SINGLETS
with time domain fitting
Q and Q-1
The solution for the damped harmonic oscillator incorporated the damping
through the quality factor Q.
Attenuation for seismic waves and a variety of other physical phenomena
are often discussed in terms of Q or Q -1.
Although Q has more convenient values, Q -1 has the advantage that is
directly rather than inversely proportional to the damping.
No attenuation -> Q = 1/Q =0

High attenuation -> Q low 1/Q high
Q OF WAVES VS Q OF THE EARTH
In some cases, Q describes the decay of an oscillation, whereas in

others it describes the physical properties of the system that
causes a disturbance to attenuate.
For example, the Q of a seismic wave at a given period describes
how it decays with time. This decay results from the distribution of
material in the earth that causes seismic energy to be lost to heat.
This distribution can be described in terms of a Q or anelastic
attenuation structure analogous to the elastic velocity structure.
Anelastic structure is analogous to the elastic velocity structure

because Q can be viewed mathematically as an imaginary part of
the frequency P = + i*
* = / 2Q
or the velocity c = c + i c* Q-1 = 2c*/c

Hence we define Q and Q for P & S waves
If there is no attenuation, Q = , the frequency & velocity are
purely real
MODEL
ANELASTICITY
IN THE EARTH
Response to
harmonic wave
peaked around
natural frequency
Peak width
proportional
to 1/Q
Schematic model
to explain why Q
is roughly
constant over a
wide range of
frequencies.
Superposition of
absorption peaks
for different
compositions
at different
temperatures and
pressures
yields a flat
absorption band.
MANY GEOPHYSICAL PROCESSES (MANTLE CONVECTION, PLATE TECTONICS,

MAGMATISM, ETC.) INVOLVE LATERAL VARIATIONS IN TEMPERATURE.
Elastic velocities are sensitive to temperature, but are more useful for mapping cold (fast)
anomalies like subducting slabs than hot (slow) material like that expected at mantle plumes.
Seismic velocities depend nearly linearly upon temperature, whereas attenuation depends
exponentially on temperature. Thus combining velocity and attenuation studies can provide
valuable information.
LOWVELOCITY AND
HIGHATTENUATION
REGION
INTERPRETED
AS MELTFILLED
MAGMA
CHAMBER
Q > 10,000 in the cold and rigid subducting slab but is less than 75 beneath the
hot back-arc basin.
ATTENUATION
VARIES BOTH
WITH DEPTH
AND
LATERALLY
In the crust, the
greatest
attenuation
(lowest Q or
highest Q-1) is near
the surface,
presumably due
fluids. Attenuation
is lowest at ~20-25
km, and increases
again, presumably
due to increasing
temperature.
Attenuation
decreases as a
function of
frequency.
Attenuation is lower in the eastern U.S. than in the hot,

tectonically active, Basin and Range
Attenuation is lower - or wave propagation more efficient -in

the eastern U.S. than in the western U.S., which is hotter
and tectonically active
Seismograms
from an
earthquake in
Texas
recorded in
Nevada and
Missouri.
The MNV record
has less high
frequencies
because the
tectonically-active
western U.S.
is more
attenuating than
the stable midcontinent.
STRONG GROUND MOTION DECAYS RAPIDLY WITH DISTANCE
Largest 1811-1812
earthquakes
caused log cabin
collapse at New
Madrid; minor
damage in St Louis,
Nashville,
Louisville, etc.
Imply
low-mid M7
(Hough et al., 2000)
M 7.2 fits observed
building damage
better (Kochkin &
Crandell, 2004)
1811-12 EARTHQUAKE MAGNITUDES
http://pasadena.wr.usgs.gov/office/hough/east-vs-west.jpg

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SEISMIC

CONSEQUENCES OF SHAKING DIFFERENCES

Kirby et al., 1996

REFLECTION AND TRANSMISSION OF SEISMIC WAVES AT DISCRETE

ANALOGOUS BEHAVIORS FOR LIGHT

AS YOU MOVE AWAY FROM A STREET LAMP AT NIGHT, THE LIGHT

2) Scattering: light dims as it is scattered

3) Light is focused or defocused by changes in

ALL FOUR PROCESSES ARE IMPORTANT FOR SEISMIC WAVES.

Expect minimum at =90, and maxima at 0 and 180

GEOMETRIC SPREADING: BODY WAVES

In reality, because body waves travel through an inhomogeneous earth, their

Woods & Okal, 1987

When multipathing occurs, seismic waves arriving at a receiver can be viewed

Whether effects of velocity heterogeneity

When the heterogeneity is large

L = distance wave travels

The fact that light scattering in the

The terrestrial record

No attenuation -> Q = 1/Q =0

Q OF WAVES VS Q OF THE EARTH

In some cases, Q describes the decay of an oscillation, whereas in

Anelastic structure is analogous to the elastic velocity structure

or the velocity c = c + i c* Q-1 = 2c*/c

MANY GEOPHYSICAL PROCESSES (MANTLE CONVECTION, PLATE TECTONICS,

Attenuation is lower in the eastern U.S. than in the hot,

Attenuation is lower - or wave propagation more efficient -in

STRONG GROUND MOTION DECAYS RAPIDLY WITH DISTANCE

1811-12 EARTHQUAKE MAGNITUDES

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