Status report on new whole waveform discriminants and preliminary results (Deliverable {number_sign}12)

The Treaty Verification Program at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has made good progress during fiscal year 1995 on devising and testing whole seismic waveform modeling methods to identify seismic events using only a few stations. This research is carried out under the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Research and Development Program (CTBTR and D) under task S4.3.4. For regions where the path is calibrated, this modeling can potentially identify and discriminate between clandestine underground nuclear events and other sources of seismic waves such as earthquakes and mine collapses. In regions where the path is not calibrated but is seismically active, the author is investigating the use of moderate to large earthquakes to obtain the necessary path calibration. Research has focused on improving whole waveform techniques for determining the source mechanism of moderate (magnitude greater than about 3.5) seismic events from a few three-component broadband sensors in regions where the paths are calibrated. Presently the author is also using these waveform techniques in new regions to test and improve path calibrations as well as to identify events. As part of this work, he has applied these waveform techniques to events of high monitoring interest with excellent results. In this report he discusses fitting three main types of events, explosions, earthquakes and mine collapses