Estimation of Radiated Seismic Energy from Teleseismic P Waves

Earthquake radiated energy is a fundamental parameter for understanding source physics. Using teleseismic waveforms, we can estimate the radiated energy for a wide range of focal mechanisms and tectonic setting. We are especially interested in studying the apparent stress (rigidity multiplied by the ratio of radiated energy to seismic moment) of strike-slip earthquakes in the oceanic lithosphere, for which there are often high reported values (Choy and McGarr, 2002). Estimates of radiated energy from teleseismic P waves can be unstable, because take-off angles from the source are often close to nodes in the focal mechanisms, which can cause large variations in the estimated values of the apparent stress. In this study, we use only P waves for the teleseismic waveform, because of the strong attenuation of teleseismic S waves and interference with other phases. We use data recorded by teleseismic stations (epicentral distances of 30 to 90deg) recorded on the GSN network and focal mechanisms published by USGS and Global CMT Project. For the teleseismic waveforms, we need to account for the radiation pattern of the direct P and depth phase, pP and sP (Boatwright and Choy, 1986). For strike-slip events with where many data are close to nodes in the focal mechanisms, this is a large and often unstable correction. We use an improved method which takes into account a range of values for the strike, dip and rake angles. Also, we use station corrections determined from a selected set of well determined events. We show the result of estimated radiated seismic energy for 188 recent earthquakes (>Mw 7.0, since 2000 ). We discuss the differences of the radiated energy as a function of focal mechanisms, and oceanic/continental sources. Fig. Radiated seismic energy and correction for radiation pattern calculated using a range of focal mechanisms.