Resolvability of the Centroid-Moment-Tensors for Shallow Seismic Sources and Improvements From Modeling High-Frequency Waveforms

Shallow earthquakes in the depth range 0–30 km make up more than 60% of all world's earthquakes. However, resolving their seismic source parameters such as the depth and moment tensor components presents a challenge. Here, we investigate the effect of frequencies higher than 0.025 Hz on centroid-moment-tensor inversion for the earthquakes occurring in the top 10 km of the Earth's crust. For a synthetic source located at the depth of 1 km, the maximum amplitude of ground motion due to a vertical dip-slip mechanism from the waveforms filtered at 0.01–0.15 Hz is about 1,400 times larger than that filtered at 0.01–0.025 Hz. We quantify the effect of this dramatic difference and other waveform differences by introducing the “balance of amplitudes” and “waveform similarity” functions for different depths and frequencies. They present a simple and fast way to estimate the resolvability of seismic sources at a given depth and frequency band. For the 20 May 2016, M_w = 5.9 Petermann Ranges earthquake in Central Australia analyzed at 0.01–0.025 Hz, a high uncertainty accompanies the estimated source parameters. When the frequency band is 0.01–0.15 Hz, the centroid depth is well constrained at 1 km and the mechanism is a thrust fault striking ~314°N and dipping ~30°NE. These simulations require accurate Earth models. Our result, obtained at higher frequencies, is in a great agreement with various other studies that have been carried out for this earthquake and confirms a 20-km long, shallow rupture.