Location USGS

2000/11/24 04:20:05 44.82N 110.59W 10.0 4.6Mb B YELLOWSTONE REGION

Location University of Utah Seismograph Stations

2000 11 24 420 6.12 44 44.96 110 41.60 4.89 4.76 28 72 4.0 0.16 0.4 0.9

Arrival time list

Felt Map

USGS Felt map for this earthquake

USGS Felt reports page for Intermountain Western US

Focal Mechanism

The focal mechanism was determined using broadband seismic waveforms. The location of the event and the station distribution are given in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Location of broadband stations used to obtain focal mechanism


  NODAL PLANES 

  
  STK=     109.99
  DIP=      64.99
 RAKE=    -110.00
  
             OR
  
  STK=     330.72
  DIP=      31.61
 RAKE=     -53.75
 
 
DEPTH = 6.0 km
 
Mw = 4.46
Best Fit 0.8229 - P-T axis plot gives solutions with FIT greater than FIT90

Focal Mechanism

Surface-wave analysis

Surface wave analysis was performed using codes from Computer Programs in Seismology, specifically the multiple filter analysis program do_mft and the surface-wave radiation pattern search program srfgrd96.

The velocity model used for the search is a modified Utah model .

Data preparation

Digital data were collected, intreument response removed and traces converted to Z, R an T components. Multiple filter analysis was applied to the Z and T traces to obtain the Rayleigh- and Love-wave spectral amplitudes, respectively. These were input to the search program which examined all depths between 1 and 25 km and all possible mechanisms.
Best mechanism fit as a function of depth. The preferred depth is given above. Lower hemisphere projection

Pressure-tension axis trends. Since the surface-wave spectra search does not distinguish between P and T axes and since there is a 180 ambiguity in strike, all possible P and T axes are plotted. First motion data and waveforms will be used to select the preferred mechanism. The purpose of this plot is to provide an idea of the possible range of solutions. The P and T-axes for all mechanisms with goodness of fit greater than 0.9 FITMAX (above) are plotted here.


Focal mechanism sensitivity at the preferred depth. The red color indicates a very good fit to the Love and Rayleigh wave radiation patterns. Each solution is plotted as a vector at a given value of strike and dip with the angle of the vector representing the rake angle, measured, with respect to the upward vertical (N) in the figure. A nearly vertical strike-slip fault striking at 75 or 165 degrees is preferred. Because of the symmetry of the spectral amplitude rediation patterns, only strikes from 0-180 degrees are sampled.

Love-wave radiation patterns

Rayleigh-wave radiation patterns

First motion data

The P-wave first motion data for focal mechanism studies are as follow (1 = strong compression 2 = weak compression, -1 = strong dilatation, -2 = weak dilataion, 0 = indeterminate polarity. Take off angle is measured with respect to downward vertical)

Sta Az(deg)    Takeoff Angle   First motion
  137    46    -2 'Y35   ' 
  142    63    -2 'Y32   ' 
  352    46    -2 'Y61   ' 
  104    46     0 'Y64   ' 
  110    63     0 'Y43   ' 
  157    46     0 'BW06  ' 
  188    46     0 'AHID  ' 
  191    45     0 'HWUT  ' 
  247    46     0 'HLID  ' 
  289    63     0 'Y13   ' 
  297    46     0 'Y12   ' 
  312    63     0 'Y24   ' 
  314    46     0 'Y23   ' 
  323    63     0 'BOZ   ' 
  327    63     0 'Y37   ' 
  335    63     0 'Y39   ' 
  101    78     1 'Y100  ' 
  146    63     1 'Y101  ' 
  176    63     1 'Y19   ' 
  183    46     1 'Y07   ' 
  193    63     1 'Y18   ' 
  202    63     1 'Y05   ' 
  206    78     1 'Y103  ' 
  208    63     1 'Y17   ' 
  215    63     1 'Y04   ' 
  231    63     1 'Y03   ' 
  241    63     1 'Y16   ' 
  244    63     1 'Y02   ' 
  259    63     1 'Y01   ' 
  260    63     1 'Y15   ' 
  356    78     1 'Y105  ' 
  120    63     2 'Y44   ' 
  138    46     2 'Y34   ' 
  140    46     2 'Y33   ' 
  162    63     2 'Y20   ' 
  172    64     2 'Y102  ' 
  177    63     2 'Y106  ' 
   19    63     2 'Y47   ' 
  281    63     2 'Y14   ' 
  355    63     2 'Y40   ' 
   71    63     2 'Y50   ' 
   95    46     2 'Y63   ' 

Broadband station distributiuon

Sta Az(deg)    Dist(km)   
Y40	  348	   61
Y16	  240	   93
Y17	  211	   93
Y15	  258	  120
BOZ	  319	  123
Y18	  197	  124
Y19	  180	  134
Y44	  125	  137
Y47	   18	  137
Y03	  231	  178
Y13	  287	  183
Y37	  324	  188
Y05	  204	  198
Y61	  350	  200
Y24	  310	  205
Y01	  258	  210
Y63	   98	  214
Y12	  294	  216
AHID	  190	  232
BW06	  160	  242
Y23	  312	  244
Y07	  186	  252
Y64	  107	  260
HLID	  247	  336
HWUT	  193	  366
CTU	  192	  468
RSSD	   96	  527
WALA	  333	  535
MPU	  190	  541
DUG	  200	  545
L03	  134	  588
L02	  134	  590
ELK	  222	  591
L01	  134	  592
NEW	  310	  630
SRU	  180	  634
WVOR	  251	  701
MVU	  191	  715
HAWA	  287	  719
BMN	  230	  730
UT54	  180	  822
UT53	  178	  831
UT52	  177	  844
PNT	  309	  848
MOD	  251	  851
UT51	  176	  862
AZ50	  176	  873
AZ49	  175	  884
LON	  288	  898
AZ48	  174	  900
AZ47	  173	  915
AZ46	  172	  926
TPH	  219	  931
NM44	  171	  943
MNV	  224	  948
EDM	  349	  956
NM43	  171	  963
BEK	  239	  974
WCN	  234	  975
NM42	  170	  976
TPNV	  210	  996
NM40	  169	 1003
OMM	  105	 1003
COR	  273	 1007
NM39	  168	 1022
WUAZ	  184	 1035
MLAC	  224	 1055
TIN	  219	 1075
WDC	  248	 1086
CMB	  231	 1112
CBKS	  123	 1120
CWC	  217	 1125
NM32	  164	 1129
MPM	  213	 1135
NM31	  164	 1147
ANMO	  161	 1152
GSC	  209	 1182
ISA	  216	 1217
NM26	  161	 1227
MB04B	  164	 1234
ULM	   56	 1259
VTV	  209	 1277
SCZ	  229	 1290
SVD	  207	 1314
OSI	  214	 1329
MB01	  161	 1334
MWC	  211	 1339
KNW	  205	 1341
PFO	  204	 1343
PHL	  222	 1344
PAS	  211	 1351
RDM	  206	 1354
SND	  204	 1354
WMC	  205	 1354
CRY	  205	 1357
DGR	  206	 1357
GLA	  197	 1357
FRD	  204	 1360
BZN	  205	 1362
DJJ	  212	 1367
USC	  211	 1369
LVA2	  204	 1373
TOV	  214	 1378
PLM	  205	 1383
TUC	  181	 1389
SBC	  217	 1392
NM15	  158	 1400
JCS	  204	 1402
MONP	  203	 1417
CIA	  211	 1436
BAR	  203	 1447
SOL	  206	 1449
NM10	  156	 1476
NM08	  156	 1514
TX06	  155	 1547
TX05	  155	 1560
TX01	  154	 1624
MOBC	  309	 1806
SLM	  105	 1822
FCC	   30	 1913
YKW1	  354	 1982

Waveform comparison for this mechanism

Since the analysis of the surface-wave radiation patterns uses only spectral amplitudes and because the surfave-wave radiation patterns have a 180 degree symmetry, each surface-wave solution consists of four possible focal mechanisms corresponding to the interchange of the P- and T-axes and a roation of the mechanism by 180 degrees. To select one mechanism, P-wave first motion can be used. This was not possible in this case because all the P-wave first motions were emergent ( a feature of the P-wave wave takeoff angle, the station location and the mechanism). The other way to select among the mechanisms is to compute forward synthetics and compare the observed and predicted waveforms.

The velocity model used for the waveform fit is a modified Utah model .

The fits to the waveforms with the given mechanism are show below:

This figure shows the fit to the three components of motion (Z - vertical, R-radial and T - transverse). For each station and component, the observed traces is shown in red and the model predicted trace in blue. The traces represent filtered ground velocity in units of meters/sec (the peak value is printed adjacent to each trace; each pair of traces to plotted to the same scale to emphasize the difference in levels). Both synthetic and observed traces have been filtered using the SAC commands:

hp c 0.02 3
lp c 0.06 3

Discussion

The Future

Should the national backbone of the USGS Advanced National Seismic System (ANSS) be implemented with an interstation separation of 300 km, it is very likely that an earthquake such as this would have been recorded at distances on the order of 100-200 km. This means that the closest station would have information on source depth and mechanism that was lacking here.

Acknowledgements

Dr. Harley Benz, USGS, provided the USGS USNSN digital data.

Appendix A

The figures below show the observed spectral amplitudes (units of cm-sec) at each station and the theoretical predictions as a function of period for the mechanism given above. The modified Utah model earth model was used to define the Green's functions. For each station, the Love and Rayleigh wave spectrail amplitudes are plotted with the same scaling so that one can get a sense fo the effects of the effects of the focal mechanism and depth on the excitation of each.

Quality Control

Here we tabulate the reasons for not using certain digital data sets

The following stations did not have a valid response files:

Last Changed Mon Sep 27 12:57:52 CDT 2004