Strong fast long-period waves in the Efpalio 2010 earthquake records: explanation in terms of leaking modes

The January 18, 2010, shallow earthquake in the Corinth Gulf, Greece (Mw 5.3) generated unusually strong long-period waves (periods 4–8 s) between the P and S wave arrival. These periods, being significantly longer than the source duration, indicated a structural effect. The waves were observed in epicentral distances 40–250 km and were significant on radial and vertical component. None of existing velocity models of the studied region provided explanation of the waves. By inverting complete waveforms, we obtained an 1-D crustal model explaining the observation. The most significant feature of the best-fitting model (as well as the whole suite of models almost equally well fitting the waveforms) is a strong velocity step at depth about 4 km. In the obtained velocity model, the fast long-period wave was modeled by modal summation and identified as a superposition of several leaking modes. In this sense, the wave is qualitatively similar to P long or Pnl waves, which however are usually reported in larger epicentral distances. The main innovation of this paper is emphasis to smaller epicentral distances. We studied properties of the wave using synthetic seismograms. The wave has a normal dispersion. Azimuthal and distance dependence of the wave partially explains its presence at 46 stations of 70 examined. Depth dependence shows that the studied earthquake was very efficient in the excitation of these waves just due to its shallow centroid depth (4.5 km).