Quasi-Cartesian Finite-Difference Computation of Seismic Wave Propagation for a Three-Dimensional Sub-global Earth Model

A simple and efficient finite-difference scheme is developed to compute seismic wave propagation for a partial spherical shell model of a three-dimensionally (3-D) heterogeneous global earth structure. This new scheme solves the elastodynamic equations in the "quasi-Cartesian" coordinate system similar to a local Cartesian one, instead of the spherical coordinate system, with a staggered-grid finite-difference method in time domain (FDTD) which is one of the most popular numerical methods in seismic motion simulations for local to regional scale models. The proposed scheme may be useful for modeling seismic wave propagation in a very large region of sub-global scale beyond regional and less than global ones, where the effects of roundness of earth cannot be ignored. In "quasi-Cartesian" coordinates, x, y, and z are set to be locally in directions of latitude, longitude and depth, respectively. The stencil for each of the x-derivatives then depends on the depth coordinate at the evaluation point, while the stencil for each of the y-derivatives varies with both coordinates of the depth and latitude. In order to reduce lateral variations of the horizontal finite-difference stencils over the computational domain, we move the target area to a location around the equator of the computational spherical coordinate system using a way similar to the conversion from equatorial coordinates to ecliptic coordinates. The developed scheme can be easily implemented in 3-D Cartesian FDTD codes for local to regional scale modeling by changing a very small part of the codes. Our scheme may be able to open a window for multi-scale modeling of seismic wave propagation in scales from sub-global to local one.