Yield Estimation from Surface-wave Amplitudes

— Surface-wave amplitudes from explosion sources show less variation for a given event han body wave amplitudes, so it is natural to expect that yield estimates derived from surface waves will be more accurate than yield estimates derived from body waves. However, yield estimation from surface waves is complicated by the presence of tectonic strain release, which acts like one or more earthquake sources superimposed on top of the explosion. Moment-tensor inversion can be used to remove the tectonic component of the surface waves, however moment-tensor inversion for shallow sources is inherently non-unique so the explosion isotropic moment cannot be determined with the necessary accuracy by this means. Explosions on an island or near a mountain slope can exhibit anomalous surface waves similar to those caused by tectonic strain release. These complications cause yield estimates derived from surface waves to be less accurate than yield estimates from body waves recorded on a well-calibrated network with good coverage. Surface-wave amplitudes can be expressed as a surface-wave magnitude Ms, which is defined as the logarithm of the amplitude plus a distance correction, or as a path corrected spectral magnitude, log \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document} $M^{\prime}_0$\end{document}, which is derived from the surface-wave spectrum. We derive relations for Ms vs. yield and log \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document} $M^{\prime}_0$\end{document} vs. yield for a large data set and estimate the accuracy of these estimates.