The effects of earth model uncertainty on the inversion of seismic data for seismic source functions

We use Monte Carlo simulations to explore the effects of earth model uncertainty on the estimation of the seismic source time functions that correspond to the six independent components of the point source seismic moment tensor. Specifically, we invert synthetic data using Green's functions estimated from a suite of earth models that contain stochastic density and seismic wave-speed heterogeneities. We find that the primary effect of earth model uncertainty on the data is that the amplitude of the first-arriving seismic energy is reduced, and that this amplitude reduction is proportional to the magnitude of the stochastic heterogeneities. Also, we find that the amplitude of the estimated seismic source functions can be under- or overestimated, depending on the stochastic earth model used to create the data. This effect is totally unpredictable, meaning that uncertainty in the earth model can lead to unpredictable biases in the amplitude of the estimated seismic source functions.

Automated summary

The uncertainty in earth models can lead to unpredictable biases in the amplitude of estimated seismic source functions, primarily manifested in the reduction of the amplitude of first-arriving seismic energy which is proportional to the magnitude of the stochastic heterogeneities.