VARIATION OF THE TRAVEL TIME DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TELESEISMIC PS CONVERTED WAVE AND PP TRANSMITTED WAVE IN FOCAL REGION BEFORE AND AFTER WENCHUAN MS8.0 EARTHQUAKE

When P waves from distant earthquakes meet a velocity discontinuity in the earth's crust and upper mantle, they give rise to a series of converted PS waves besides PP refracted waves. It is possible to monitor the variation of the physical properties of the medium in the limited formation space above the transition zone of the seismogenic zone by measuring the time difference between the teleseismic PS converted wave and the first arrival P wave, that is, time-variation Δt_PS=t_PS-t_P. The advantage of this method is that the transition point of the teleseismic source with similar source is relatively stable at the transition interface, and the accuracy of the measured relative time is high, and the change of the medium in a small range of the seismogenic zone above the conversion interface can be monitored. This paper studies the variation of the travel time difference Δt_PS in focal region before and after Wenchuan M_S8.0 earthquake. We select 2001 to 2012 as the research period, use teleseismic waveforms which occurred in the southern region of Sumatra and Hindu Kush area recorded by Sichuan station YZP and JJS. These teleseisms satisfy 5.0 ≤ M ≤ 6.5, and their waveform signal-to-noise ratio is high with clear initial P-wave motion. The epicentral distance of teleseisms is less than 3 degrees. Then we obtain the variation of the travel time difference Δt_PS between teleseismic PS converted wave and PP transmitted wave recorded during the study period in the two stations. The results show that there is a slow increasing trend of Δt_PS before 2006, and an obvious low value process of Δt_PS appeared in the period about 2 years before the Wenchuan earthquake. The maximum decline was about 0.2~0.3s, more than 4~5 times the measurement error. The low value has a certain degree of return about 2~3 months before the earthquake. The change of arrival time difference indicates that the medium is in different states in different periods of seismogenic process. The sharp decrease in Δt_PS from 2006 to January 2008 may be due to the strong disturbance caused by the stress accumulation of the medium. At this stage, the velocity of P wave and S wave increases with the increase of stress, and the increase of S wave velocity will result in the decrease of Δt_PS. The change of Δt_PS is greatly affected by S wave velocity, so Δt_PS appears to decrease rapidly. Regarding the low value that has a certain degree of return about 2~3 months before the Wenchuan earthquake, the possible reason is that the release of stress is much higher than the accumulation of stress in meta-instability stage. At this stage, the velocity of S wave decreases and the decrease of S wave causes Δt_PS to increase. Then, the Wenchuan earthquake of magnitude 8.0 occurred. It is shown that the teleseismic converted wave method in this paper can monitor the variation of medium's wave velocity before large earthquakes, and it has a good prospect in seismic monitoring and worth further experimental study.