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SUMMARY In this study, I demonstrate that distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) raw strain rate data can directly be used to estimate spectral source parameters through an Empirical Green's Function (EGF) deconvolution analysis. Previously, DAS had been widely used in passive seismology to image the subsurface and analyze ground motion variations by converting strain or strain rate to particle velocity or acceleration prior to analysis. In this study, spectral analysis is applied to the PoroTomo joint DAS and seismic Nodal array in the Brady Hot Springs geothermal field to obtain source parameters for two M4 earthquakes via EGF analysis, where nearly collocated smaller events are used as an EGF to remove path and site effects. The EGF workflow is applied to raw DAS strain rate data without conversion to particle velocities and raw Nodal seismic data. The DAS and Nodal results are very consistent with similar features of spectral ratios, corner frequencies and moment ratios for the same event pairs. The uncertainty due to stacked spectral measurement is much lower on the DAS array, suggesting better stability of spectral shape measurement, possibly due to the much denser spatial sampling. The uncertainty due to model fitting is similar between DAS and Nodal arrays with slightly lower uncertainty on the DAS array. These observations demonstrate potential for directly using the strain rate measurements from DAS arrays for earthquake source characterizations.
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This content will become publicly available on March 4, 2026
Effect of Time Window and Spectral Measurement Options on Empirical Green’s Function Analysis Using DAS Array and Seismic Stations
ABSTRACT The recorded seismic waveform is a convolution of event source term, path term, and station term. Removing high-frequency attenuation due to path effect is a challenging problem. Empirical Green’s function (EGF) method uses nearly collocated small earthquakes to correct the path and station terms for larger events recorded at the same station. However, this method is subject to variability due to many factors. We focus on three events that were well recorded by the seismic network and a rapid response distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) array. Using a suite of high-quality EGF events, we assess the influence of time window, spectral measurement options, and types of data on the spectral ratio and relative source time function (RSTF) results. Increased number of tapers (from 2 to 16) tends to increase the measured corner frequency and reduce the source complexity. Extended long time window (e.g., 30 s) tends to produce larger variability of corner frequency. The multitaper algorithm that simultaneously optimizes both target and EGF spectra produces the most stable corner-frequency measurements. The stacked spectral ratio and RSTF from the DAS array are more stable than two nearby seismic stations, and are comparable to stacked results from the seismic network, suggesting that DAS array has strong potential in source characterization.
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- PAR ID:
- 10587421
- Publisher / Repository:
- BSSA
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America
- ISSN:
- 0037-1106
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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