Introduction

The propagator matrix technique as implemented in the Computer Programs in Seismology sequence sprep96/sdisp96/sregn96 inherently assumes that the shear-wave velocity increases with depth, although minor deviations are permitted. A characteristic of such models is that the eigenfunction amplitudes that decay exponentially with depth are largest near the surface of the model.

There are other models for which this is not true. An extreme case is that of a low velocity zone within a uniform wholespace, or as presented here, a low velocity zone (LVZ) within a uniform halfspace. For these extreme models one expects that eigenfunctions should be contained withing the low velocity zone, except for the halfspace case for which there will be something like the classic Rayleigh wave propagating along the surface.

Surface wave theory

In isotropic media, surface waves arise by  solving the differential equations


for SH waves and


for P-SV waves with suitable boundary conditions. For normal use, the boundary conditions are then the displacements (U) go to zero as z goes to infinity and that the stresses at the surface be zero. In such a case the solutions of the SH and P-SV problems are called Love and Rayleigh waves, respectively. 

The original surface wave codes of Computer Programs in Seismology (CPS) that are in PROGRAMS.330/VOLIII/src, sprep96, sdisp96, sregn96 and slegn96 for isotropic media and tprep96, tdisp96, tregn96 and tlegn96 for transverse isotropic media, start computations from the bottom halfspace up to the surface through the use of propagator matrices for layers with constant parameters. One consequence of this is that exponential eigenfunctions increase upward for the model. This is not the appropriate behavior for the modes trapped within the LVZ.

An alternative compurational procedure is to use reflection rather than propagator matrices. Chen (1993) built upon the technique of Kennett. Later Pei et al (2008) simplified the procedure to use Generalized Reflection matrices. It was quickly recognized the this technique could properly compute eigenfunctions for a medium with a low velocity layer.  Several program in Computer Programs in Seismology use this technique. For surface waves these are rregn96 and rlegn96 and for wavenumber integration there is rspec96 which can handle a mixed stack of solid and fluid layers.  At present rregn96 and rlegn96 only permit solid, isotropic layering.

The normal sequence of the surface wave dispersion codes is indicated in this figure.

The rregn96 and rlegn96 replace the sregn96 and slegn96 in this flowchart. The other programs are not changed. Just for completeness, the transverse isotropic problems have the initial letter 't', e.g., tprep96, tdisp96, tdpsrf96, tcomb96, tlegn96, tregn96, tdpegn96, tdpder96 and tpulse96.

The procedure is to first compute the dispersion and then compute the eigenfunctions. The program sdisp96 uses an extended floating point implementation  in software that avoids overflow, and actually seems to get the correct dispersion. So there is no corresponding rdisp96 program.

The low velocity model

The purpose of this note is to consider the extreme example of a low velocity zone embedded within a halfspace.

The model

The model in Model96 format is

MODEL.01
LVZ Model with infinite Q, e.g., Q inverse = 0
ISOTROPIC
KGS
FLAT EARTH
1-D
CONSTANT VELOCITY
LINE08
LINE09
LINE10
LINE11
  H(KM) VP(KM/S) VS(KM/S) RHO(GM/CC)   QP   QS  ETAP  ETAS  FREFP  FREFS
  0.0900  4.0000  2.3090  2.0          0    0   0      0      1     1
  0.0125  2      1        2.0          0    0   0      0      1     1
  0.0125  2      1        2.0          0    0   0      0      1     1
  0.0100  4.0000  2.3090  2.0          0    0   0      0      1     1

A plot of this model is

The dispersion

Using the velocity model, the following commands were executed to get the dispersion:

#!/bin/sh

#prepare the data set
sprep96 -M SCMs.mod -R -DT 0.005 -NPTS 8191 -NMOD 10

# get the dispersion
sdisp96

# plot the dispersion but more importantly get the dispersion in ASCII form. 
# The -K -1 forces a different color for each mode, with the fundamental
# in red and the highest in blue

sdpsrf96 -VMIN 0.0 -VMAX 2.5 -R -ASC -K -1 # convert the PLT file to a PNG using ImageMagick DOPLTPNG SDISPC.PLT

The DOPLTPNG converts the CPS CALPLOT file format to EPS and then uses the ImageMagick convert to
create an PNG graphics file. DOPLTPNG is the following script
#!/bin/sh

for i 
do
B=`basename $i .PLT`
plotnps -F7 -W10 -EPS -K < $i > t.eps
convert -trim t.eps -background white -alpha remove -alpha off ${B}.png
rm t.eps
done

The dispersion plot is


Rayleigh wave phase velocities for the model with a low velocity zone. The figure is color coded to indicate the mode: Mode=0) (fundamental) is red, mode=6 is blue.



This is an interesting plot. Note the nearly horizontal phase velocity near 2.12295 km/s, which is the value expected for the classical halfspace Rayleigh wave for Vp=4.0 km/s and Vs=2.3098 km/s. The other phase velocity values are associated with modes trapped within the low velocity zone.

For the discussion of eigenfunctions that follows, we will focus on the following dispersion values obtained from the call to sdpsrf96.

# RMODE NFREQ  PERIOD(S)          FREQUENCY(Hz)        C(KM/S)

#    0   236   0.1848375451E-01    54.10156250        1.112097914
#    1   236   0.1848375451E-01    54.10156250        1.577176773
#    2   236   0.1848375451E-01    54.10156250        1.897318721
#    3   236   0.1848375451E-01    54.10156250        2.122965625
#    4   236   0.1848375451E-01    54.10156250        2.279119456

Eigenfunctions

Eigenfunctions were computed using MATLAB code provided by Youhua Fan which was used for the paper

Liu, Xuefeng and Youhua Fan (2012). On the characteristics of high-frequency Rayleigh waves in stratified
half-space, Geophys. j. Int. 190, 1041-1057 doi: 10.1111/j.1365-246X.2012.05479.x

This code used generalized reflection matrices and an algorithm to define the correct eigenfunction. To determine the eigenfunctions for a given phase velocity and frequency, one selects a layer within which to compute the up- and down-going wave coefficients. The solutions for each are compared and one giving the smallest transformed stresses at the surface is selected as the appropriate eigenfunction. The normalized eigenfunctions are shown in the next figure. each frame displays the Ur,Uz, Tz and Tr eigenfunctions as a function of depth. The title line indicates the eigenfunction, mode, frequency and phase velocity. The horizontal dashed red lines in the Tr plots indicate the location of the low velocity zone.


Focusing on the Uz eigenfunctions we see that the mode number corresponds to the number of zero crossings. We also see that for mode 3, for which the phase velocity was very close to the halfspace Rayleigh wave phase velocity that the eigenfunction amplitudes are largest near the surface, but that the correct number of zero crossing are there.

Developments

Starting with the discussion of Generalized Reflection matrices in Surface Waves in Layered Media (SWLM). I have created a FORTRAN code rregn96 for Rayleigh waves and rlegn96 for Love waves that computes eigenfunctions, group velocity, the energy integrals requires to get the AR and the phase velocity partials with respect to velocity and density. I have also created a Beigen_fc.m / Beigfuns.m following the Liu and Fan code, but using the definitions of SWLM as a test of the SWLM logic.

On February 5, 2024, I finally had a production run of regn96 to use to compare to the MATLAB results. In this program, the surface value of Uz is set to 1.0 and thus the eigenfunctions are not normalized. As recommended in the Fan code, one aspect of this implementation is that the code specifically uses the layer nearest the surface which has the lowest velocity. The eigenfunction plots for the five modes are given in the next figure. Each row shows the eigenfunciton plots for a given mode, which is indicated at the bottom of each plot.

The eigenfunction shapes are the same as that from the MATLAB code. However we can now see the amplitudes.

It is useful to consider the contribution of each mode to a synthetic. Recall that

The value of the AR depends on the normalization used, but the product AR Uz(h) Uz(z) is independent of the normalization. Here z is the receiver depth and h is the source depth. For surface sources and observations, which is the assumption of ambient noise studies, we see that just mode 3 at this frequency will contribute to the observations.

To evaluate the computations, the next set of figures displays the phase velocity, C, group velocity,U, the surface ellipticity, E, and the AR=A0 for all modes up to 100 Hz. The colors indicate the mode with the fundamental, mode=0, as red, and the highest mode as blue.

The salient feature at very high frequencies is that modes trapped within the low velocity zone will have very small amplitudes for surface source and receivers. It is also interesting that at high frequencies that there is a sequence of modes whose phase velocities and ellipticities have a horizontal trend as would be expected for a constant velocity halfspace, e.g., the classic fundamental mode Rayleigh wave. For a constant velocity halfspace, the AR should vary as f1 as a function of frequency. this is difficult to see in the AR plot above because of the plot scaling.

The next figure displays the dispersion for a uniform halfspace with the parameters of the top layer of the model given above.


Synthetic comparison

Besides computing dispersion, the PROGRAMS.330/VOLIII codes also compute the parameters required to make synthetics. A successful comparison of the modal superposition synthetics to those obtained using wavenumber integration provides another test of the new codes. Here the focus is on surface observations at an epicentral distance of 50m  (0.05km) for sources at depths of 1, 25, 50, 75, 100 (in the LVZ) and 130 meters. The ZVF, RVF, THF and ZEX Green's functions are compared. The presentation shows the result of using hspec96 (WK), rspec96 (RK), rregn96/rlegn96 locked mode SW(locked), and rregn96/rlegn96 (SW).

Recall that model superposition can only create that part of the seismogram composed of phase velocities less than that of the halfspace S-velocity. Thus it cannot model the P wave. The locked mode approximation consists of adding a high velocity layer at depth with an S-wave velocity that permits one to see the P waves of the original model. This must be done carefully since additional arrivals will arise in the new model. Because the epicentral distance here is 50m, the travel times from bottom reflections will not arrive in the time window of interest.  Here are the two models in the CPS model96 format:

Original model
Locked mode model
MODEL.01
LVZ Model with infinite Q, e.g., Q inverse = 0
ISOTROPIC
KGS
FLAT EARTH
1-D
CONSTANT VELOCITY
LINE08
LINE09
LINE10
LINE11
  H(KM) VP(KM/S) VS(KM/S) RHO(GM/CC)   QP   QS  ETAP  ETAS  FREFP  FREFS
  0.0900  4.0000  2.3090  2.0          0    0   0      0      1     1
  0.0250  2       1       2.0          0    0   0      0      1     1
  0.0850  4.0000  2.3090  2.0          0    0   0      0      1     1
  0.9000  4.0000  2.3590  2.0          0    0   0      0      1     1
MODEL.01
LVZ Model with infinite Q, e.g., Q inverse = 0 for locked mode
ISOTROPIC
KGS
FLAT EARTH
1-D
CONSTANT VELOCITY
LINE08
LINE09
LINE10
LINE11
  H(KM) VP(KM/S) VS(KM/S) RHO(GM/CC)   QP   QS  ETAP  ETAS  FREFP  FREFS
  0.0900  4.0000  2.3090  2.0          0    0   0      0      1     1
  0.0250  2       1       2.0          0    0   0      0      1     1
  0.0850  4.0000  2.3090  2.0          0    0   0      0      1     1
  0.9000  4.0000  2.3590  2.0          0    0   0      0      1     1
  5       10      5       2    0 0 0  0 1 1

The comparison for selected Green's functions are given in the next four figures. An examination shows that the WK and RK synthetics are the same, and the SW(locked) does a fairly good job of modeling the P-wave arrival which the SW synthetics cannot do. The biggest difference in the Sw synthetics  is for  the ZEX Green's functions at depth, since the isotropic source generates P waves which has a minimum pahse velocity greater than the S velocities of the original model. See the final summary at the end of this webpage.










Record sections

This distribution has two sub-directories: SECTION_001 for a source depth of 0.001km and SECTION_100 for a source depth of 0.100km. The script DOIT in each directory computes the Greens functions for point forces and for an isotropic moment tensor by wavenumber integration. Thus all P and S waves are included to represent a real data set. The script DOEGN computes the theoretical phase velocities.  The user then runs do_pom to perform a phase velocity stack. Thus program creates the CALPLOT file POM96.PLT and the shell script prototype POM96CMP which uses the eigenfunctions computed by DOEGN. This script is then hand edited to define the pen color and width.

Dispersion from record sections

Source depth 0.001 km (1m). 

The ZVF and RHF record sections recorded at the surface are shown in the next figure.

ZVF record section THF record section

As expected the large arrival propagates with a velocity of about 2.2 km/s, which is close to the S-wave velocity outside of the LVZ.

The next step is to perform a p-omega analysis using do_pom to estimate the phase velocities. The sequence of operations is as follows for vertical motions recorded at the surface due to a point vertical force:

do_pom *.ZVF

[do_pom uses the following button sequence: Select all traces, MinPer of 0.01 sec, MaxPer of 2.0 sec, Nray 500, Vmin 0.010 km/sm Vmax 5.000 km/s, X-Axis Frequency Type Rayleigh and Length of 2.]

DOEGN
[Edit the POM96CMP so that the call to sdpegn96 to add 0=-K 0 -W 0.05 at the end to read
sdpegn96 -X0 2.00 -Y0 1.00 -XLEN 6.00 -YLEN 6.00 -XMIN 9.96 -XMAX 100. -YMIN 0.01 -YMAX 5.00 -FREQ -R -C -NOBOX -XLOG -YLIN -K 0 -W 0.05 ]

sh ./POM96CMP

cat POM96.PLT SREGNC.PLT > 001.PLT
../DOPLTPNG 001.PLT


In this set of operations the theoretical dispersion is plotted on top of the experimentally determined dispersion. The 100.png so created is shown in this figure.

Phase velocity analysis for the ZVF Green's function
Phase velocity analysis for the THF Green's function


Source depth 0.100 km (100 m)

Here the ZEX Green's function is considered which is due to an isotropic moment tensor source to represent signals generated by an explosion at depth, which is the expected type of source in a mine. The ZEX record section recorded at the surface  is shown in the next figure.

ZEX record section


This looks very different. The higher velocity P-wave arrivals are apparent.

The sequence of operations is as follows for vertical motions recorded at the surface due to the isotropic moment tensor source at depth:

do_pom *.ZEX 

[do_pom uses the following button sequence: Select all traces, MinPer of 0.01 sec, MaxPer of 2.0 sec, Nray 500, Vmin 0.010 km/sm Vmax 5.000 km/s, X-Axis Frequency Type Rayleigh and Length of 2.]

DOEGN
[Edit the POM96CMP so that the call to sdpegn96 to add 0=-K 0 -W 0.05 at the end to read
sdpegn96 -X0 2.00 -Y0 1.00 -XLEN 6.00 -YLEN 6.00 -XMIN 9.96 -XMAX 100. -YMIN 0.01 -YMAX 5.00 -FREQ -R -C -NOBOX -XLOG -YLIN -K 0 -W 0.05 ]

sh ./POM96CMP

cat POM96.PLT SREGNC.PLT > 100.PLT
../DOPLTPNG 100.PLT

The 100.png so created is shown in this figure.


Phase velocity stack for ZEX Green's functions at a source depth of 0.100 km.

Discussion

The purpose of the synthetic record sections was to determine what might be observed in real data. For the shallow source, one sees evidence of the LVZ at the lower frequencies, but at higher frequencies the surface classic Rayleigh wave phase velocity is seen in the vertical ZVF traces. For the SH in the THF traces, there is a set of arrivals approaching the velocity of the S-wave velocity of the cap. In both there are strong continuations of the higher modes into the leaky modes.

The ZEX Green's functions for the deeper source are a bit more interesting. This source will only generate P waves with phase velocities greater than 2 km/s. Note that some of these will be converted to S waves at the P-wave travels from the LVZ into the higher velocity medium. However none will give rise to the low velocity S waves in the LVZ. Thus the measured dispersion is hard to model using surface wave theory.

Locked mode results

As mentioned above, a thicker model with a high velocity base was used for a locked mode approximation. In this case the leaky modes of the simple case become ordinary modes that can be analyzed.

The locked mode method is still a modal superposition technique which means that it can only represent signals having phase velocities less than the S-velocity in the halfspace, which was 5 km/s. Thus one should be able to model some of the features shown in the phase velocity plots of the complete synthetics.  In this set of plots a linear frequency axis is used rather than logarithmic.

One obvioous feature of these plots is that the number of modes is significantly greater. Note that there are apparent horizontal trends with velocities near 4.0 km/s and 2.4 km/s whose effect to to create the body wave arrivals.


In the ZVF figure for the 1m source depth, the feature seen above at a frequency of about 20 Hz and phase velocity of 2.8km/s, which was ascribed to a leaky mode is not modeled.  In all cases the very low frequency fundamental mode value is not well modeled. If the record section had extended  out to a greater distance, then beter estimated would have resulted from the procedure.

Phase velocity analysis for the ZVF Green's function
Phase velocity analysis for the THF Green's function

For the deeper source, we see that more of the features seen in the phase velocity analysis of the ZEX traces correspond to modes.

Phase velocity stack for ZEX Green's functions at a source depth of 0.100 km.

Summary

The sregn96/slegn96 codes were developed 40 year ago and are well tested. The challenge of properly handling a model with a significant low velocity zone require some intuition of what the various parameters should actually be. This the reason for the extra step of computing synthetics by modal superposition. The agreement with wavenumebr integration results was a necessary step in validating the new rregn96/rlegn96 codes.

Since every tutorial needs a tarball of the run, the 075.tgz unpacks to

gunzip -c 075.tgz | tar tvf -
-rwxr-xr-x rbh/rbh 766 2024-02-20 13:50 LSW.075/DOIT
-rwxr-xr-x rbh/rbh 693 2024-02-20 10:52 RK.075/DOIT
-rwxr-xr-x rbh/rbh 722 2024-02-20 13:51 SW.075/DOIT
-rwxr-xr-x rbh/rbh 693 2024-02-20 10:54 WK.075/DOIT

DOIT script in each subdirectory will give the Green's functions for a source depth of 0.075 km in the LVZ model.

References

Chen, W. and Chen, X. (2002). Modal solutions in stratified multi-layered fluid-solid halfspace.
Science in China, Series D:, 445, 358-365.

Chen, X. (1993). A systematic and efficient method of computing normal modes for multilayered
half-space. Geophys. J. Int., 115, 391-409.

Herrmann, R. B. (2013). Computer programs in seismology: An evolving tool for instruction
and research. Seism. Res. Letters, 84,  1081-1088.

Liu, X/ and Fan, Y. (2012). On the characteristics of high-frequency Rayleigh}waves in stratified
half-space, Geophys. J. Int., 190, 1041-1057.

Liu, X.-F. and Fan, Y.-H. (2011). A study on 'jump point' frequencies of zigzag dispersion curves in
Rayleigh wave exploration, Chinese Journal of Geophysics, 54,  608-620.

Pei, D., Louie, J. N., and Pullammanappallil, S. K. (2008). Improvements on computation of
phase velocities of Rayleigh waves based on the generalized R/T coefficient method. Bull.
Seism. Soc. Am., 98, 280-287.

Pei, D., Louie, J. N., and Pullammanappallil, S. K. (2009). Erratum to ”improvements on
computation of phase velocities of Rayleigh waves based on the generalized R/T coefficient
method”. Bull. Seism. Soc. Am., 99, 2610-2611.

Wu, B. and Chen, X. (2016). Stable, accurate and efficient computation of normal modes for
horizontal stratified models. Geophys. J. Int., 206, 1281-1300.


Last changed February 20, 2024