Green’s Function, Earthquakes, and a Fast Ambient Noise Tomography Methodology

Abstract

Green’s function plays an important role in the relationship of a future strong earthquake epicenter to the average earthquake potential score. In the frame of the latter, the fractal dimension of the unified scaling law for earthquakes naturally arises. Here it is also shown to be a cornerstone for the development of a new ambient noise tomography methodology, which is applied for example to the west coast of Central Greece. In particular, we show that a fast and reliable 3D shear velocity model extraction is possible without the need for a large amount of data, great-circle propagation assumptions, or the intermediate step of inverting for group velocity maps. The tomography results are consistent with previous studies conducted in the neighboring region.

Keywords

• Green’s function
• earthquakes
• surface wave tomography
• shear velocity model
• inversion