Group Velocity Measurements of Earthquake Rayleigh Wave by S Transform and Comparison with MFT

Abstract

Based upon the synthetic Rayleigh wave at different epicentral distances and real earthquake Rayleigh wave, S transform is used to measure their group velocities, compared with the Multiple Filter Technique (MFT) which is the most commonly used method for group-velocity measurements. When the period is greater than 15 s, especially than 40 s, S transform has higher accuracy than MFT at all epicenter distances. When the period is less than or equal to 15 s, the accuracy of S transform is lower than that of MFT at epicentral distances of 1000 km and 8000 km (especially 8000 km), and the accuracy of such two methods is similar at the other epicentral distances. On the whole, S transform is more accurate than MFT. Furthermore, MFT is dominantly dependent on the value of the Gaussian filter parameter α, but S transform is self-adaptive. Therefore, S transform is a more stable and accurate method than MFT for group velocity measurement of earthquake Rayleigh waves.