Application of an improved algorithm to high precision relocation of ISC test events

New location features for possible implementation by the International Seismological Centre in its standard location procedures are tested using a set of 156 well-located and geographically well-distributed earthquakes and explosions. The tests are performed using the Engdahl et al. ([Engdahl, E.R., Van der Hilst, R.D., Buland, R.P., 1998. Global teleseismic earthquake relocation with improved travel times and procedures for depth determination. Bull. Seism. Soc. Am. 88, 3295-3314]; EHB) location algorithm with the I-D reference Earth model ak135 [Kennett, B.L.N., Engdahl, E.R., Buland, R., 1995. Constraints on seismic velocities in the Earth from travel times, Geophys. J. Int. 122, 108-124]. Weighting by phase variance as a function of distance improves location accuracy by 7%. Use of later phase arrival times does not result in a significant improvement in location or depth for events with observing stations well distributed in azimuth. However, with application of an improved phase identification technique, depth phases provide significantly better estimates of focal depth. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.