Discrimination Between Earthquakes and Underground Explosions Employing an Improved Ms Scale

Abstract

Summary The M, Rayleigh wave magnitude formula is revised for purposes of eliminating the heretofore variable effects of near distances and propagation paths on the values computed from standard long-period seismograms. The improved formulation employs a revised distance correction function and a period-dependent path correction that normalizes M, to large teleseismic distance 20-s values. For purposes of earthquake-explosion discrimination, an empirical focal depth correction is derived on the basis of Rayleigh wave frequency content as a function of focal depth, which normalizes M, values to the surface focus equivalent, i.e. aids discrimination when it can be applied by increasing earthquake M, values and moving them away from the equivalent explosion population on M, : m, plots. The revised M, improves on previously achieved discrimination of North American events, and provides reliable discrimination between suites of Eurasian earthquakes and explosions. Having removed the dominant propagation path effects on M,, the residual differences in M, : mb among events are generally attributed to source environment and regional effects on m,,. The 42 Eurasian WWSSN stations employed are shown to have a discrimination threshold at the M,3.2 level. With the improved M, scale now equivalent to first order for North American and Eurasian continental propagation, available Nevada Test Site explosion yields are extrapolated to the Eurasian sites to illustrate that this M,3.2 discrimination threshold is equivalent to an Eurasian explosion of about 20 kt in hard rock. Given improved long-period instrumentation to reduce the Rayleigh wave detection threshold, the principal restriction on further studies of discrimination to lower levels of magnitude and yield will be the availability of earthquake occurrence information at the low magnitudes.