Abstract
One application of forensic seismology is to help verify compliance
with the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. One of the challenges
facing the forensic seismologist is to discriminate between the many
thousands of earthquakes of potential interest each year and potential
Treaty violations (underground explosions). There are four main methods:
(a) ratio of body- to surface-wave magnitudes, (b) ratio of high-frequency
P to S energy, (c) model-based methods, and (d) source depth. Methods
(a) and (b) have an empirical basis. The weakness of methods (a)-(c)
is the lack of an equivalent elastic source for an underground explosion
fired in the range of geological media found around the world. Reliable
routine source-depth determination has proved difficult. However,
experience gained in the past decade at identifying suspicious seismic
sources suggests that although no single method works all of the
time, intelligent and original application of complementary methods
is usually sufficient to satisfactorily identify the source in question.
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