Accuracy of teleseismic event locations in the Middle East and North Africa

Abstract

Seismic characterization at the regional level requires accurate determination of phases and travel times for many combinations of stations and events. An important consideration in the process is the accuracy of event locations. The LLNL Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Research Program is currently working on data from the Middle East and North Africa, where seismic station coverage is relatively sparse and ``ground truth`` seismic source information is practically nonexistent. In this report the investigator use after shock studies as a source of local ground truth. He evaluates teleseismic location accuracy by comparing hypocenters determined by local networks with those determined teleseismically [e.g. the International Seismological Center (ISC) and the National Earthquake Information Center (NEIC)]. Epicentral locations, origin times, and depth determinations of events from three aftershocks studies (Algeria, Armenia, and Iran) and one local network study (Iran) are compared with ISC and NEIC locations for the same events. The key parameter for the ISC locations is the number of observations used in the location determination. For more than 40-50 observations, the agreement rapidly diminishes and ISC locations can differ from local determinations by as much as 80 km or more. Events in Iran show a distinct bias of ISC locationmore » errors toward the northeast; events in Armenia and Algeria show no directional bias. This study shows that only events with ISC M{sub b} {gt} 4.4-4.5 or NEIS M{sub b} {gt} 4.7-4. should be used for compiling travel time information from teleseismic bulletins in the Middle East/North Africa region when locations from the NEIC and ISC bulletins are used.« less