Travel Time and Waveform Measurements of Global Multibounce Seismic Waves Using Virtual Station Seismogram Stacks

Abstract

Abstract We construct geographically localized bin stacks of waveforms, called virtual stations, to enhance signal‐to‐noise ratios (SNRs) for travel time and waveform measurements of multibounce S and ScS phases (S up to S6 and ScS up to ScS5), as well as direct S, ScS, and Sdiff, on tangential component data. Major arc S and ScS multibounce waves were also measured. Virtual station data are referenced to empirical wavelets constructed from direct S waves for each event. The virtual station approach is useful for low SNR data, bolstering wave path coverage in the southern hemisphere. Goodness of fit measurements between the adapted empirical wavelet and virtual station waveforms are documented, as well as SNRs, allowing for objective definition of travel time measurement quality. From a data set of 360 earthquakes and 8,407 seismographic stations, nearly 4 million records were utilized to construct 248,657 virtual station stacked seismograms, which were compared to best‐fitting empirical wavelets. After human inspection of virtual station results, 8,871 travel time measurements were retained from 19 different minor and major arc seismic wave types. Higher multibounce data improve sampling of the southern hemisphere. From 188,003 single seismograms, 3,331 multibounce wave measurements were also made. Comparisons of single seismogram and virtual station stack measurements show a consistent bias: Virtual stack onset times are systematically early due to a broadening effect from stacking records with arrival time differences, which we correct for. The travel time and waveform measurements are publicly available.

Keywords

• S wave data set
• slowness stacking
• multibounce S waves
• multibounce ScS waves
• major arc phases