Inversion of seismograms to determine simultaneously the moment tensor components and source time function for a point source buried in a horizontally layered medium

Summary A method of determining simultaneously the moment tensor and source time function in the point source approximation is presented. For trial values of the moment tensor components and of the source time function, parametrized by the sum of overlapping triangles delayed in time, theoretical seismograms can be synthetized and compared with the recorded ones. The iterative procedure determines the adjustment of source parameters until a good correlation of both synthetic and observed records is reached. The Green functions in a horizontally stratified medium are constructed with the use of a modal summation method.The limits of applicability of the algorithm are illustrated by the inversion of four synthetic seismograms constructed for two horizontally stratified models of the structure in Friuli area, Italy. The records constructed for the same structural model as for which the Green functions were computed can be inverted even in the high-frequency range. In the opposite case, when the records and Green functions used corresponded to different structural models, a good correlation of the input records with the final synthetics was obtained for low - pass filtered data only.Additional tests performed with input seismograms contaminated with random noise yielded good resolution of the moment tensor and the duration of the source time function even for a high noise to signal ratio.