Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Earthquake Location Es 313 Prof - Dr.Monalisa
Earthquake Location Es 313 Prof - Dr.Monalisa
Lecture 13 07 2020
ES 313
Prof.Dr.MonaLisa
Manual Method
• To get an approximate location of an earthquake
is possible with the help of seismic waves.
• If the seismic network is dense and the
earthquake is originated inside the network, the
station with the earliest arrival can be
approximated as the epicentre.
• This is called earliest station method, and it gives
an estimate with a probable error of the same
order as the station spacing.
• Another approach is to contour the P-wave
arrival times.
• This is an extension of the earliest station
method.
• This may give fairly good estimate of the
epicentre location if the network is dense
enough.
• If the network is not dense and it consists of a
few stations only, then the method is not
effective.
• A good approximation of the epicentre can be
made by arc method or circle method with
three or more S-P times.
• Three parameters are calculated which include
epicentral distance X, hypocentral distance D
and depth of focus (H) of an earthquake.
• If Tp is arrival time of the P wave and Ts is that
of the S wave, then we can write:
• Where Vp and Vs are the velocity of the P-wave
and S-wave respectively.
• Equating both equations,
• Assuming Vp/Vs = 1.73, the hypocentre
distance can be estimated as