3 Search Results

We characterize the attenuation structure of the Arabian Peninsula through the measurement of regional phase amplitudes. High-resolution is achieved by combining stations from global networks with national network data through the cooperative effort of several countries in the region, including Saudi Arabia, Oman, Iraq, and Kuwait. The result is an improved attenuation model of the crust and upper mantle for a broad frequency band that extends from 0.5 to 10 Hz. The observed attenuation is in accordance with various elements of earth structure, including plate boundary type, style of tectonism, thermo-tectonic age, and temperature. Emerging features from the model includemore » details in the structure along the Red Sea, and improved imaging of the southern Arabian Peninsula extending north from the Gulf of Aden. Finally, the resulting attenuation model can be employed for better magnitude estimates, in isolating tectonic and structural features, and in characterizing strong ground motion in the Arabian Peninsula.« less

Seismic arrays provide useful tools for regional seismic monitoring. Two small-aperture, regionally-oriented arrays, QWAR and HQAR, were deployed in Saudi Arabia and Oman in 2012 and 2016. We utilize a time-domain beampacking method, similar to frequency-wavenumber analysis, to examine the performance of the arrays in terms of slowness and azimuthal bias and event detection capabilities. Additionally, we investigate persistent ambient noise sources recorded by the arrays. We find that the arrays provide slowness vectors with biases comparable with similar-sized arrays of the International Monitoring System in other locations around the world. At QWAR, regional events of magnitude 3.0 and abovemore » are detected a majority of the time, and as magnitudes increase to 4.0 and above, the detection rate is greater than 82%. Finally, strong noise generation, primarily with slownesses characteristic of Lg waves, is found in the directions of the northern Arabian/Persian Gulf and southern Red Sea and may be a factor in event detection capabilities.« less

Reliable moment magnitude estimates for seismic events in the Middle East region can be difficult to obtain due to the uneven distribution of stations, the complex tectonic structure, and regions of high attenuation. In this paper, we take advantage of the many new broadband seismic stations that have become available through improved national networks and numerous temporary deployments. We make coda envelope-amplitude measurements for 2247 events recorded by 68 stations over 13 narrow frequency bands ranging between 0.03 and 8 Hz. The absolute scaling of these spectra was calculated based on independent waveform modeling solutions of the moment magnitudes formore » a subset of these events to avoid circularity. Using our 1D path calibrations, we determined coda-based magnitudes for a majority of the events. We obtain fairly good agreement with waveform-modeled seismic moments for the larger events (Mw>4.5) at low frequencies (<0.7 Hz). As expected, the coda-derived source spectra become increasingly scattered at higher frequencies (>0.7 Hz) because of unaccounted 2D path effects, as well as mixing of both Sn coda and Lg coda, which have different attenuation behavior. This scatter leads to increased variance in the magnitudes estimated for smaller events in which low-frequency amplitudes are below the noise levels and the higher frequencies are the only signals available. We quantify the expected variance in coda envelope amplitudes as a function of frequency using interstation scatter as our metric. Finally, the net results of this study provide thousands of new 1D coda magnitude estimates for events in the broad region, as well as the necessary initial starting model for use in a new related 2D coda study (Pasyanos et al., 2016).« less