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Evaluation of Short-Period, Near-Regional M_s Scales for the Nevada Test Site

Weston Geophysical Corporation
4000 S. Medford, Suite 10W
Lufkin, Texas 75901
bonner{at}westongeophysical.com
(J.L.B.)
Weston Geophysical Corporation
57 Bedford Street, Suite 102
Lexington, Massachusetts 02420
hark{at}mvl7-2-1.ourconcord.net
sara{at}westongeophysical.com
ileana{at}westongeophysical.com
(D.G.H., S.A.R., I.M.T.)
Southern Methodist University
P.O. Box 0395
Dallas, Texas 75275
herrin{at}passion.isem.smu.edu
(E.T.H.)
Department of Statistics
University of California
360 Kerr Hall
One Shields Ave.
Davis, California 95616
rhshumway{at}ucdavis.edu
(R.H.S.)

Manuscript received 6 December 2002.

Surface wave magnitude (M_s) estimation for small events recorded at near-regional distances will often require a magnitude scale designed for Rayleigh waves with periods less than 10 sec. We have examined the performance of applying two previously published M_s scales on 7-sec Rayleigh waves recorded at distances less than 500 km. First, we modified the Marshall and Basham (1972) M_s scale, originally defined for periods greater than 10 sec, to estimate surface wave magnitudes for short-period Rayleigh waves from earthquakes and explosions on or near the Nevada Test Site. We refer to this modification as , and we have used short-period, high-quality dispersion curves to determine empirical path corrections for the 7-sec Rayleigh waves. We have also examined the performance of the Rezapour and Pearce (1998) formula, developed using theoretical distance corrections and surface wave observations with periods greater than 10 sec, for 7-sec Rayleigh waves () as recorded from the same dataset. The results demonstrate that both formulas can be used to estimate M_s for nuclear explosions and earthquakes over a wider magnitude distribution than is possible using conventional techniques developed for 20-sec Rayleigh waves. These M_s(7) values scale consistently with other M_s studies at regional and teleseismic distances with the variance described by a constant offset; however, the offset for the estimates is over one magnitude unit nearer the teleseismic values than the estimates. Using our technique, it is possible to employ a near-regional single-station or sparse network to estimate surface wave magnitudes, thus allowing quantification of the size of both small earthquakes and explosions. Finally, we used a jackknife technique to determine the falsealarm rates for the -m_b discriminant for this region and found that the probability of misclassifying an earthquake as an explosion is 10%, while the probability of classifying an explosion as an earthquake was determined to be 1.2%. The misclassification probabilities are slightly higher for the estimates. Our future research will be aimed at examining the transportability of these methods.

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