The scattering of shear-waves in the crust

The two major sources of scattering for shear-waves in the crust, interactions with the topography at the surface and the effective anisotropy of aligned cracks throughout the rockmass, introduce first-order changes to the shear-wave particle-motion. At the surface, shear-waves are scattered by the topography within a wavelength or two of the recording site so that, unless the effective incidence angle is less than the critical angle sin^–1 V _S/V _P, the recorded waveforms may bear little relationship to the waveforms of the incident wave. Within the rockmass, shear-waves are scattered by extensive-dilatancy anisotropy (EDA), the distribution of stress-aligned fluid-filled cracks, microcracks, and preferentially oriented pore-space pervading most rocks in the crust. Analysis of this shear-wave splitting yields new information about the internal structure of thein situ rockmass which is not otherwise available.