Source Specific Station Corrections for Regional Phases at Fennoscandian Stations

—?The IASPEI91 global travel-time curves are used as the default for event location at the Prototype International Data Center (PIDC). In order to improve event location, a 1-D Baltic travel-time model was implemented at the PIDC in 1997 for locating events using regional phases from Fennoscandian stations. Where a single model is insufficient for characterizing the regional geology, path-dependent corrections, or Source Specific Station Corrections (SSSCs), are more appropriate for event locations. We have developed SSSCs for regional phases at the Fennoscandian stations by interpolating travel times through different 1-D models. SSSCs for stations NRIS and SPITS are also derived, given the fact that paths from both stations to high latitude events are within the Fennoscandia regionalization as Baltic.¶Validation testing of the SSSCs demonstrates that using SSSCs in event location is superior to not using SSSCs, a nd, in most cases, to using the 1-D model directly when locating events. For a ground-truth data set which includes events in the Baltic Shield with location accuracy better than 2?km, the average improvement in location due to SSSCs is 9?km, and the median coverage ellipse is reduced by 2710?km² (from 3830 to 1120?km²). These results are similar to those obtained using the 1-D Baltic model. For a CEB (Calibration Event Bulletin) data set which includes events along the North Atlantic oceanic ridge and in central/southern Europe, using SSSCs the ridge events move closer to the ridge axis, and the European events move closer to CEB locations than 1-D Baltic locations. For a constrained JHD (Joint Hypocenter Determination) data set of events in the Novaya Zemlya region, when using SSSCs or the 1-D Baltic model, relative to the JHD locations mislocations are less or similar to those without SSSCs. All coverage ellipses are smaller but sti ll contain the JHD solutions.¶Our SSSCs are strongly dependent on the 1-D regional models and regionalization. Future development in 1-D velocity models and travel-time curves should improve such SSSCs, event locations, and uncertainties. It is hoped that the implementation and demonstration of SSSCs in the PIDC software will encourage these further developments. These SSSCs were implemented at the PIDC for Reviewed Event Bulletin (REB) location in April 1999.     

Operational Processing of Hydroacoustics at the Prototype International Data Center

— The Prototype International Data Center (PIDC) has designed and implemented a system to process data from the International Monitoring System's hydroacoustic network. The automatic system detects and measures various signal characteristics that are then used to classify the signal into one of three categories. The detected signals are combined with the seismic and infrasonic detections to automatically form event hypotheses. The automatic results are reviewed by human analysts to form the Reviewed Event Bulletin (REB). Continuous processing of hydroacoustic data has been in place since May 1997 and during that time a large database of hydroacoustic signals has been accumulated. For a two-year period, the REB contains 13,582 T phases that are associated to 8,437 events. This is roughly 25% of REB events after taking station downtime into account. Predicted travel times used in locations are based on the arrival time of the peak a mplitude mode calculated from a normal mode propagation model. Global sound velocity and bathymetry databases are used to obtain reliable 2-D, seasonally dependent, travel-time tables for each hydroacoustic station in the PIDC. A limited number of ground-truth observations indicate that the predicted travel times are good to within 5 seconds for paths extending to over 7,000?km – corresponding to a relative error of less than 0.1%. The ground truth indicates that the random errors in measuring arrival times for impulsive signals are between 1 and 6 seconds. This paper describes and evaluates the automatic hydroacoustic processing compared to the analyst reviewed results. In addition, special studies help characterize the overall performance of the hydroacoustic network.     

Earthquake Location Accuracies in Norway Based on a Comparison between Local and Regional Networks

—?Detailed studies of the low to intermediate seismicity in two coastal regions of Norway have been used in a comparison between earthquake locations from local high-precision networks on the one side and locations using a sparse regional array network on the other side. To this end, a reference set of 32 low-magnitude earthquakes have been located using two local temporary networks in northern and western Norway, with estimated epicenter accuracies better than 5 and 10?km, respectively. Comparisons are made between the local network solutions and the NORSAR Generalized Beamforming (GBF) system, which provides automatic phase association and location estimates using the Fennoscandian regional array network. The median automatic GBF location error is of the order of 20–30?km when four or more arrays detect the event, increasing to about 80–100?km when only two arrays are available, and the automatic GBF bulletin is essentially complete down to magnitude M_L = 2.0. Most of the mislocation vectors of the NORSAR GBF solutions are oriented perpendicular to the Norwegian coast, and with a tendency to pull the location in a southeasternly direction. The GBF performance is clearly better, both in terms of accuracy and completeness, than the performance of the automatic bulletin of the Prototype International Data Center (PIDC) which uses data from essentially the same network. The analyst reviewed NORSAR and PIDC bulletins show, not unexpectedly, an improvement in location accuracy compared to the automatic solutions and appear to be of similar quality for the few common events, with an average mislocation of about 20?km. The NORSAR reviewed bulletin is more complete at low magnitudes compared to PIDC, and there appears to be a potential for significant improvements in the PIDC processing of small seismic events in this region.     

Experimental Seismic Event-screening Criteria at the Prototype International Data Center

—?Experimental seismic event-screening capabilities are described, based on the difference of body-and surface-wave magnitudes (denoted as M _s :m _b ) and event depth. These capabilities have been implemented and tested at the prototype International Data Center (PIDC), based on recommendations by the IDC Technical Experts on Event Screening in June 1998. Screening scores are presented that indicate numerically the degree to which an event meets, or does not meet, the M _s :m _b and depth screening criteria. Seismic events are also categorized as onshore, offshore, or mixed, based on their 90% location error ellipses and an onshore/offshore grid with five-minute resolution, although this analysis is not used at this time to screen out events.¶Results are presented of applications to almost 42,000 events with m _b ?≥?3.5 in the PIDC Standard Event Bulletin (SEB) and to 121 underground nuclear explosions (UNE's) at the U.S. Nevada Test Site (NTS), the Semipalatinsk and Novaya Zemlya test sites in the Former Soviet Union, the Lop Nor test site in China, and the Indian, Pakistan, and French Polynesian test sites. The screening criteria appear to be quite conservative. None of the known UNE's are screened out, while about 41 percent of the presumed earthquakes in the SEB with m _b ?≥?3.5 are screened out. UNE's at the Lop Nor, Indian, and Pakistan test sites on 8 June 1996, 11 May 1998, and 28 May 1998, respectively, have among the lowest M _s :m _b scores of all events in the SEB.¶To assess the validity of the depth screening results, comparisons are presented of SEB depth solutions to those in other bulletins that are presumed to be reliable and independent. Using over 1600 events, the comparisons indicate that the SEB depth confidence intervals are consistent with or shallower than over 99.8 percent of the corresponding depth estimates in the other bulletins. Concluding remarks are provided regarding the performance of the experimental event-screening criteria, and plans for future improvements, based on recent recommendations by the IDC Technical Experts on Event Screening in May 1999.     

The instrumental seismicity of the Barents and Kara sea region: relocated event catalog from early twentieth century to 1989

We have relocated seismic events registered within the Barents and Kara sea region from early twentieth century to 1989 with a view to creating a relocated catalog. For the relocation, we collected all available seismic bulletins from the global network using data from the ISC Bulletin (International Seismological Centre), ISC-GEM project (International Seismological Centre–Global Earthquake Model), EuroSeismos project, and by Soviet seismic stations from Geophysical Survey of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The location was performed by applying a modified method of generalized beamforming. We have considered several travel time models and selected one with the best location accuracy for ground truth events. Verification of the modified method and selection of the travel time model were performed using data on four nuclear explosions that occurred in the area of the Novaya Zemlya Archipelago and in the north of the European part of Russia. The modified method and the Barents travel time model provide sufficient accuracy for event location in the region. The relocation procedure was applied to 31 of 36 seismic events registered within the Barents and Kara sea region.     

Relocation of Wyoming Mine Production Blasts Using Calibration Explosions

—?An important requirement for a comprehensive seismic monitoring system is the capability to accurately locate small seismic events worldwide. Accurate event location can improve the probability of determining whether or not a small event, recorded predominantly by local and regional stations, is a nuclear explosion. For those portions of the earth where crustal velocities are not well established, reference event calibration techniques offer a method of increased locational accuracy and reduced locational bias.¶In this study, data from a set of mining events with good ground-truth data in the Powder River Basin region of eastern Wyoming are used to investigate the potential of event calibration techniques in the area. Results of this study are compared with locations published in the prototype International Data Center's Reviewed Event Bulletin (REB). A Joint Hypocenter Determination (JHD) method was applied to a s et of 23 events. Four of those events with superior ground-truth control (mining company report or Global Positioning System data) were used as JHD reference events. Nineteen (83%) of the solutions converged and the resulting set of station-phase travel-time corrections from the JHD results was then tested. When those travel-time corrections were applied individually to the four events with good ground-truth control, the average locational error reduced the original REB location error from 16.1?km to 5.7?km (65% improvement). The JHD locations indicated reduced locational bias and all of the individual error ellipses enclosed the actual known event locations.¶Given a set of well-recorded calibration events, it appears that the JHD methodology is a viable technique for improving locational accuracy of future small events where the location depends on arrival times from predominantly local and/or regional stations. In this specific case, the International Associ ation of Seismology and the Physics of the Earth's Interior (IASPEI) travel-time tables, coupled with JHD-derived travel-time corrections, may obviate the need for an accurately known regional velocity structure in the Powder River Basin region.     

Improving Regional Seismic Event Location in China

—?In an effort to improve our ability to locate seismic events in China using only regional data, we have developed empirical propagation path corrections and applied such corrections using traditional location routines. Thus far, we have concentrated on corrections to observed P arrival times for crustal events using travel-time observations available from the USGS Earthquake Data Reports, the International Seismic Centre Bulletin, the preliminary International Data Center Reviewed Event Bulletin, and our own travel-time picks from regional data. Location ground truth for events used in this study ranges from 25?km for well-located teleseimic events, down to 2?km for nuclear explosions located using satellite imagery. We also use eight events for which depth is constrained using several waveform methods. We relocate events using the EvLoc algorithm from a region encompassing much of China (latitude 20°–55°N; longitude 65°–115°E). We observe that travel-time residuals exhibit a distance-dependent bias using IASPEI91 as our base model. To remedy this bias, we have developed a new 1-D model for China, which removes a significant portion of the distance bias. For individual stations having sufficient P-wave residual data, we produce a map of the regional travel-time residuals from all well-located teleseismic events. Residuals are used only if they are smaller than 10?s in absolute value and if the seismic event is located with accuracy better than 25?km. From the residual data, correction surfaces are constructed using modified Bayesian kriging. Modified Bayesian kriging offers us the advantage of providing well-behaved interpolants and their errors, but requires that we have adequate error estimates associated with the travel-time residuals from which they are constructed. For our P-wave residual error estimate, we use the sum of measurement and modeling errors, where measurement error is based on signal-to-noise ratios when available, and on the published catalog estimate otherwise. Our modeling error originates from the variance of travel-time residuals for our 1-D China model. We calculate propagation path correction surfaces for 74 stations in and around China, including six stations from the International Monitoring System. The statistical significance of each correction surface is evaluated using a cross-validation technique. We show relocation results for nuclear tests from the Balapan and Lop Nor test sites, and for earthquakes located using interferometric synthetic aperture radar. These examples show that the use of propagation path correction surfaces in regional relocations eliminates distance bias in the residual curves and significantly improves the accuracy and precision of seismic event locations.     

A scheme to set preferred magnitudes in the ISC Bulletin

One of the main purposes of the International Seismological Centre (ISC) is to collect, integrate and reprocess seismic bulletins provided by agencies around the world in order to produce the ISC Bulletin. This is regarded as the most comprehensive bulletin of the Earth’s seismicity, and its production is based on a unique cooperation in the seismological community that allows the ISC to complement the work of seismological agencies operating at global and/or local-regional scale. In addition, by using the seismic wave measurements provided by reporting agencies, the ISC computes, where possible, its own event locations and magnitudes such as short-period body wave m _b and surface wave M _S . Therefore, the ISC Bulletin contains the results of the reporting agencies as well as the ISC own solutions. Among the most used seismic event parameters listed in seismological bulletins, the event magnitude is of particular importance for characterizing a seismic event. The selection of a magnitude value (or multiple ones) for various research purposes or practical applications is not always a straightforward task for users of the ISC Bulletin and related products since a multitude of magnitude types is currently computed by seismological agencies (sometimes using different standards for the same magnitude type). Here, we describe a scheme that we intend to implement in routine ISC operations to mark the preferred magnitudes in order to help ISC users in the selection of events with magnitudes of their interest.     

Optimization of Surface Wave Identification and Measurement

—?Accurate and reliable measurement of surface waves is important to Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) monitoring because the M _s :m _b discriminant and its regional variants can in many cases unambiguously identify events as earthquakes or explosions. Surface wave processing at the International Data Center (IDC) is designed to be completely automated and is performed using the program Maxsurf. Maxsurf searches for surface wave characteristics in the expected surface wave arrival time window for all continuous long-period and broadband data in the IDC processing stream. The Prototype IDC GSETT3 Reviewed Event Bulletin (REB) now contains a very large and growing data set of surface wave measurements. Users of this data set need to be aware of processing changes and calibration errors in the GSETT3 experimental bulletin. The prototype International Monitoring System (IMS) surface wave detection threshold is approximately one magnitude unit lower than the detection threshold of other global networks that use visual identification of surface waves. Surface wave identification and measurement can be improved through development of regionalized earth models, phase-matched filtering and the use of path corrected spectral magnitudes in place of M _s . Regionalized earth models are developed through tomographic inversion of a very large data set of phase and group velocity dispersion measurements. Discrimination capability can be improved through the use of maximum likelihood magnitudes and maximum likelihood upper bounds.     

Calibration of Regional S/P Amplitude-ratio Discriminants

v--vS/P amplitude ratios have proven to be a valuable discriminant in support of monitoring a Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Regional S and P phases attenuate at different rates and the attenuation can vary geographically. Therefore, calibration is needed to apply the S/P discriminant in new regions. Calibration includes application of frequency-dependent source and distance corrections for regional Pn, Pg, Sn, and Lg phases.¶Jenkins et al. (1998) developed Pn, Pg, Sn, and Lg amplitude models for nine geographic regions and two global composite models, stable and tectonic. They determined frequency-dependent source and attenuation corrections from a large data set obtained from the Prototype International Data Center (PIDC). We use their corrections to evaluate calibrated S/P discriminants.¶Our discrimination data set includes >1000 amplitude ratios from earthquakes, industrial explosions, chemical explosions, and nuclear explosions from Lop Nor, India and Pakistan. We find that the calibrated S/P ratio is largest for earthquakes and smallest for the nuclear explosions, as expected. However, the discriminant is not universally valid. In particular, the S/P ratio for the Pakistan nuclear explosion fell within the normal range for the earthquakes. This event was recorded by only a few stations at far-regional distances and appears to have an anomalously high Sn amplitude. The industrial explosions overlap with the earthquake population, however the buried chemical explosions generally register lower S/P ratio than earthquakes.     

Seismicityof the Novaya Zemlya archipelago: relocated event catalog from 1974 to 2014

We have relocated seismic events registered in the area of the Novaya Zemlya Archipelago, which are not identified as nuclear explosions but are probably of tectonic nature. For the relocation, we collected all available seismic bulletins and waveform data. The location was performed by applying a modified method of generalized beamforming. Verification of the modified method and selection of the travel time model were performed using data on two Novaya Zemlya nuclear explosions that occurred on 02.11.1974 and 24.10.1990. The modified method and the BARENTS travel time model provide sufficient accuracy for event location in the region. The relocation procedure was applied for 9 seismic events registered in the area of the Novaya Zemlya Archipelago. As a result, the new coordinates of the five events turned out to be significantly different from those that were defined previously.     

The Kirovskiy Explosion of September 29, 1996: Example of a CTB Event Notification for a Routine Mining Blast

—?On September 29, 1996, a routine mining blast of about 390 metric tons was detonated underground at the Kirovskiy mine in the central Kola Peninsula. The United States was notified two weeks in advance that the blast was to take place and was given the date, approximate time, location and total charge. The explosion was detected and located by the prototype International Data Center (pIDC) and published in the Reviewed Event Bulletin (REB). Detailed information about the blast, including the type and depth of mining operation, the underground charge configuration, and the blasting delay pattern, is reviewed and combined with a seismological analysis of the event. The seismic analysis points to a possible associated tectonic component to the blast, consisting of a small rock burst or induced tremor, spall, or some combination of these mechanisms, that may have enhanced the shear waves, produced large Rg waves at low frequency, and small Pn/Sn and Pn/Lg amplitude ratios at high frequency. While these discriminants might identify the event as an earthquake, the spectral/cepstral analysis of the event clearly shows the ripple-fire delays. This event provides important confidence-building measures for both location calibration, in the form of travel-time corrections for location of mine events in this region, and for improved understanding of seismic discriminants expected for large mine blasts that may have an associated induced tectonic component (e.g., spall, mine tremor or rock burst).     

Scoring IDC SEL1 events for identifying misformed events

The International Data Center (IDC) produces several automatic seismic event lists followed by a reviewed event list as part of the verification regime for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. For the time period from 2005 to 2011, on average, approximately 160 events per day were included in the first IDC automatic Standard Event List (SEL1). For the same time period, “only” 86 events per day were included in the IDC Reviewed Event Bulletin (REB). Several possible reasons may explain why an event included in SEL1 is excluded from the REB; for example: misassociation, namely, the association process generated an artificial event by associating information from stations that recorded several different events. Reducing the number of SEL1 events that are ultimately excluded from the REB would improve the automatic process relying on the SEL1 Bulletin and would reduce the workload of the analysts at the IDC. In this work, we present a scoring method that indicates the probability that an SEL1 event will “survive” the analysis process and be included in the REB. The method tries to imitate “good” analyst practice. Namely, based on the experience gained in analyzing information from a specific region with a seismic network, the analyst can decide if an event is a “real” event or not. The score was created for the International Monitoring System primary seismic stations based on the REB for the time period of 2005 to the beginning of 2011. The score is designed to indicate if the set of stations contributing/not contributing to the event is consistent with what is expected based on the analysis of past events that occurred in the same region. A byproduct of the analysis needed for the score is a statistical measure that assesses the typical contribution of a specific station to a specific region. This information can be useful in its own right, for example, to design subnetworks that will increase automatic processing efficiency.     

Global Event Location with Full and Sparse Data Sets Using Three-dimensional Models of Mantle P-wave Velocity

—?In order to improve on the accuracy of event locations at teleseismic distances it is necessary to adequately correct for lateral variations in structure along the ray paths, either through deterministic model-based corrections, empirical path/station corrections, or a combination of both approaches. In this paper we investigate the ability of current three-dimensional models of mantle P-wave velocity to accurately locate teleseismic events. We test four recently published models; two are parameterized in terms of relatively long-wavelength spherical harmonic functions up to degree 12, and two are parameterized in terms of blocks of constant velocity which have a dimension of a few hundreds of km. These models, together with detailed crustal corrections, are used to locate a set of 112 global test events, consisting of both earthquakes and explosions with P-wave travel-time data compiled by the Internation al Seismological Centre (ISC). The results indicate that the supposedly higher resolution block models do not improve the accuracy of teleseismic event locations over the longer wavelength spherical harmonic models. For some source locations the block models do not predict the range of observed travel-time residuals as well as the longer wavelength models. The accuracy of the locations largely varies randomly with geographic position although events in central Asia are particularly well located. We also tested the effect of reduced data sets on the locations. Multiple location iterations using 30 P-wave travel times indicate that teleseismic events may be located within an area of 1000?km² of the true location 66% of the time with only the model-based corrections, and increasing to 75% if calibration information is available. If as few as 8 phases are available then this is possible only 50% of the time. Further refinement in models and/or procedure, such as the addition of P _n phases, azimuth data, and consideration of P-wave anisotropy may provide further improvement in the teleseismic location of small events.     

Infrasonic Signal Detection and Source Location at the Prototype International Data Centre

—?This paper describes an automatic and interactive data processing system designed to locate impulsive atmospheric sources with a yield of at least one kiloton by detecting and characterizing the airborne infrasound radiated by the source. The infrasonic processing subsystem forms part of a larger system currently under development at the Prototype International Data Center (PIDC) in Arlington, Virginia where seismic, hydroacoustic, radionuclide and infrasonic methods are used to detect and locate impulsive sources in any terrestrial environment. Infrasonic signal detection is achieved via a coincidence detector which requires both the normalized cross correlation and the short-term-average/long-term-average ratio of a beam in the direction of maximum correlation to exceed predetermined threshold values simultaneously before a detection is declared. The infrasound propagation model currently used to infer travel-time information assumes the horizontal sound speed across the ground to be 320.0?m/s. This crude model is currently being replaced by a model which predicts travel-time information through a ray-tracing algorithm for acoustic waves in an atmosphere with seasonal representations for temperature and wind. A novel feature of the source location process is the fusion of all available arrival information, whether it be seismic, hydroacoustic or infrasonic to locate a single source where it is reasonable to hypothesize a common source. In its final configuration the infrasonic subsystem will routinely process data from the global 60-station International Monitoring System (IMS) infrasonic network currently under development.     

Slowness Corrections — One Way to Improve IDC Products

—?The first step to identify and locate a seismic event is the association of observed onsets with common seismic sources. This is especially important in the context of monitoring the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) at the International Data Center (IDC) being developed in Vienna, Austria. Well-defined slowness measurements are very useful for associating seismic phases to presumed seismic events.¶Shortly after installation of the first seismic arrays, systematic discrepancies between measured and theoretically predicted slowness values were observed, and therefore slowness measurements of seismic stations should be calibrated. The observed slownesses measured with small aperture arrays, some of which will be included in the International Monitoring System (IMS) now being implemented for verifying compliance with the CTBT, show large scatter and deviations from theoretically expected values. However, in this study a method is presented, by which mean slowness corrections can be derived, which show relatively stable patterns specific to each array.¶The correction of measured slowness values of these arrays clearly improved the single array location capabilities. Applying slowness corrections with seismic phases observed by ARCES, FINES, GERES, and NORES, and associated to seismic events in the bulletins of the prototype International Data Center (pIDC) in Arlington, VA, also clearly demonstrates the advantages of these corrections. For arrays with large slowness deviations that are due to the influence of a dipping layer, the corrections were modeled with a sine function depending on the measured azimuth. In addition, the measured values can be weighted with the corresponding uncertainties known from the process of deriving the mean corrections.     

The Applicability of Modern Methods of Earthquake Location

We compare traditional methods of seismic event location, based on phase pick data and analysis of events one-at-a-time, with a modern method based on cross-correlation measurements and joint analysis of numerous events. In application to four different regions representing different types of seismicity and monitored with networks of different station density, we present preliminary results indicating what fraction of seismic events may be amenable to analysis with modern methods. The latter can supply locations ten to a hundred times more precise than traditional methods. Since good locations of seismic sources are needed as the starting point for so many user communities, and potentially can be provided due to current improvements in easily-accessible computational capability, we advocate wide-scale application of modern methods in the routine production of bulletins of seismicity. This effort requires access to waveform archives from well-calibrated stations that have long operated at the same location.     

Application of 3-D Crustal and Upper Mantle Velocity Model of North America for Location of Regional Seismic Events

—?Seismic event locations based on regional 1-D velocity-depth sections can have bias errors caused by travel-time variations within different tectonic provinces and due to ray-paths crossing boundaries between tectonic provinces with different crustal and upper mantle velocity structures. Seismic event locations based on 3-D velocity models have the potential to overcome these limitations. This paper summarizes preliminary results for calibration of IMS for North America using 3-D velocity model. A 3-D modeling software was used to compute Source-Station Specific Corrections (SSSCs(3-D)) for Pn travel times utilizing 3-D crustal and upper mantle velocity model for the region. This research was performed within the framework of the United States/Russian Federation Joint Program of Seismic Calibration of the International Monitoring System (IMS) in Northern Eurasia and North America.¶An initial 3-D velocity model for North America was derived by combining and interpolating 1-D velocity-depth sections for different tectonic units. In areas where no information on 1-D velocity-depth sections was available, tectonic regionalization was used to extrapolate or interpolate. A Moho depth map was integrated. This approach combines the information obtained from refraction profiles with information derived from local and regional network data. The initial 3-D velocity model was tested against maps of Pn travel-time residuals for eight calibration explosions; corrections to the 3-D model were made to fit the observed residuals. Our goal was to find a 3-D crustal and upper mantle velocity model capable predicting Pn travel times with an accuracy of 1.0–1.5 seconds (r.m.s.).¶The 3-D velocity model for North America that gave the best fit to the observed travel times, was used to produce maps of SSSCs(3-D) for seismic stations. The computed SSSCs(3-D) vary approximately from +5 seconds to ?5 seconds for the western USA and the Pre-Cambrian platform, respectively. These SSSCs(3-D) along with estimated modeling and measurement errors were used to relocate, using regional data, an independent set of large chemical explosions (with known locations and origin times) detonated within various tectonic provinces of North America. Utilization of the 3-D velocity model through application of the computed SSSCs(3-D) resulted in a substantial improvement in seismic event location accuracy and in a significant decrease of error ellipse area for all events analyzed in comparison both with locations based on the IASPEI91 travel times and locations based on 1-D regional velocity models.     

Slowness–azimuth corrections of teleseismic events for IMS primary arrays in China

The seismic arrays at Hailar (HILR) and at Lanzhou (LZDM) in China are both primary stations of the International Monitoring System for verifying compliance with the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. These two stations became operational in 2002 and have since then provided continuous data. In this study, the so-called slowness–azimuth station corrections (SASC) were derived and used to improve the location accuracy of the two arrays. The SASC are found by comparing the back-azimuth and slownesses obtained from array processing to the theoretical values calculated from the reported event locations and the corresponding seismic velocity model. Events reported by the National Earthquake International Center in the time period 2002 to 2006 were used as reference events, and the IASP91 was used as the theoretical velocity model. Small correction vectors with random orientation were found for HILR. Larger correction vectors with systematic vector biases were found for LZDM. The LZDM correction vectors seem to point to the same direction in a large part of the slowness space and may be attributed to local structure. After introducing the SASC for HILR, the standard deviations of back-azimuth and slowness residuals drop from 7.1° to 4.6° and from 1.0 to 0.6 s/°, respectively. For LZDM, these values drop from 22.3° to 10.2° and from 2.9 to 1.1 s/°, respectively. The variations of back-azimuth and slowness residuals were reduced by 32% and 30.2%, respectively, for HILR after SASC and the reductions were 21% and 40.2% for LZDM. The improvements were 77% in back-azimuth and 67% in slowness location for HILR and were 79% and 81% for LZDM after SASC. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.