Focal mechanism of seismic events with a dipolar component

Abstract

In this paper we model the geometry of a seismic source as a dislocation occurring on an elemental flat fault in an arbitrary direction with respect to the fault plane. This implies the use of a fourth parameter in addition to the three usual ones describing a simple double couple mechanism. We applied the radiation pattern obtained from the theory to a computer code written for the inversion of the observation data (amplitudes and polarities of the first onsets recorded by a network of stations). It allows the determination of the fault mechanism gener- alized in the above mentioned way. The computer code was verified on synthetic data and then applied to real data recorded by the seismic network operated by the Ente Nazionale per l'Energia Elettrica (ENEL), monitoring the geothermal field of Larderello. The experimental data show that for some events the source mechanism exhibits a significant dipolar component. However, due to the high standard deviation of the amplitude data, F-test applied to the results of the analysis shows that only for two events the confidence level for the general- ized model exceeds 90%.