Surface-wave constraints on the August 1, 1975, Oroville earthquake

Abstract

Observations of Love and Rayleigh waves on WWSSN and Canadian Network seismograms have been used to place constraints upon the source parameters of the August 1, 1975, Oroville earthquake. The 20-sec surface-wave magnitude is 5.6. The surface-wave radiation pattern is consistent with the fault geometry determined by the body-wave study of Langston and Butler (1976). The seismic moment of this event was determined to be 1.9 × 10^(25) dyne-cm by both time-domain and long-period (T ≥ 50 sec) spectral amplitude determinations. This moment value is significantly greater than that determined by short-period studies. This difference, together with the low seismic efficiency of this earthquake, indicates that the character of the source is intrinsically different at long periods from those aspects which dominate the shorter-period spectrum.

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