Free Oscillations of a Laterally Heterogeneous and Anelastic Earth

Abstract

We calculate normal modes of the laterally heterogeneous and anelastic earth model by using the variational method to include the coupling of the modes due to the asphericity of the earth. If the aspherical anelasticity correlates with the heterogeneity of elastic velocity structure, the quality factor Q of the split singlets has a correlation with the eigenfrequency. This can cause a center frequency shift of the spectral peak with time. We perform a synthetic experiment to examine whether the magnitude of the shift can become an observable for the realistic lateral heterogeneity model of anelasticity. The result of the experiment reveals that the shift of the center frequency is consistent with the initial estimate for the fundamental spheroidal modes used in the experiment. We then examine the actual seismograms of the June 9, 1994, Bolivian earthquake to determine if this shift of center frequency can be observed. Although the amount of the center frequency shift of each multiplet is large, there is no consistent shift of the center frequency that is predicted in the synthetic experiment.