Combining translational and rotational seismic motions to invert local-scale seismic data for time-variable moment tensors: do rotational motions help for high-frequency seismic data produced by underground explosions?

We present an analysis of combining translational and rotational seismic data in an inversion for the time-variable source time functions corresponding to the components of the seismic moment tensor. We conduct a series of numerical experiments where the data are simulated by a combination of an underground explosion and a co-located double couple shear source and recorded on surface-mounted seismometers within 1-2 km of the source. The experiments are designed to mimic explosion seismology experiments, and thus the data are in the 1-10 Hz frequency range and contain very few surface waves. We use a Monte Carlo method to propagate Earth model uncertainty into the estimates of seismic source parameters. In our experiments, we find that the uncertainty of the estimated seismic source parameters increases when we add rotational seismic motions to the inversion when using a constant number of data channels. In this case, the increased degree of uncertainty in the final results is most likely due to the near-surface Earth model uncertainty that we introduce in our simulations. However, for a fixed number of seismic stations, adding rotational seismic motions to the inversion acts to decrease the uncertainty of the estimated seismic source parameters, most likely due to the increase in the number of data channels used in the inversion.

Automated summary

This study presents an analysis of combining translational and rotational seismic data to invert for the time-variable source time functions corresponding to the components of the seismic moment tensor. Numerical experiments are conducted to simulate data from an underground explosion and a co-located double couple shear source, recorded on surface-mounted seismometers. The results show that the uncertainty of the estimated seismic source parameters increases when rotational seismic motions are added to the inversion with a constant number of data channels. However, when a fixed number of seismic stations are used, adding rotational seismic motions to the inversion decreases the uncertainty of the estimated seismic source parameters.