Seismic Wave Amplification, Attenuation, and Scattering at the UZ-16 Borehole, Yucca Mountain, Nevada

The UE#25 UZ-16 borehole array at Yucca Mountain, Nevada (designated site for the nation's high-level nuclear waste repository), provides a prime opportunity to investigate near surface effects on seismic waveforms as a function of depth. The borehole 3-component geophone array consists of 96 depth levels of 4.5 Hz sensors from about 30 m to 500 m depth below the surface. Currently we are recording at 18 approximately equally spaced depth levels and the array was recently augmented with three 3-component matching surface sensors (totaling 63 16-bit 200 sps data channels). The time stamped continuous digital data stream is telemetered in real-time to the Nevada Seismological Laboratory where it is visually inspected and event data is subset and integrated with regional network data when necessary; system check calibrations have been performed on all recorded sensors. Therefore, we have high resolution time-depth local and regional earthquake waveform histories from 500 m to the surface within the Yucca Mountain block. Due to the thick cover of Miocene volcanic tuffs at Yucca Mountain, the borehole does not penetrate into the underlying Paleozoic basement but samples tuff horizons of varying thicknesses and properties. Ground motion design criteria for the repository and surface facilities are based, in part, on characterizing the near surface velocities and the amplification, intrinsic attenuation, and scattering of seismic waves from local earthquakes. We present results from several investigations of local earthquake recordings including spectral ratios and attenuation as a function of depth and characterize scattering in the tuff layers. Preliminary results indicate differences in spectral ratios depending on component, with E-W components indicating higher ratios relative to N-S and Z components as compared to the bottom most geophone, most likely due to the structural fabric of Yucca Mountain. Also, most observed amplification from spectral ratios (from about 3 Hz to 15 Hz) appears to occur within the top 60 m of the borehole with the surface geophones demonstrating the largest amplifications, as expected. Preliminary results indicate coda energy amplification, as a function of depth, within the first 5 s after the primary S-wave arrival.