Wy. Kim et al., DISCRIMINATION OF EARTHQUAKES AND EXPLOSIONS IN THE EASTERN UNITED-STATES USING REGIONAL HIGH-FREQUENCY DATA, Geophysical research letters, 20(14), 1993, pp. 1507-1510
High-frequency regional records from small earthquakes (1.3 < magnitud
e < 4), and comparable magnitude explosions, are analyzed to find a re
liable seismic discriminant in the eastern U. S. Over 500 digital, ver
tical-component seismograms recorded by the New York State Seismic Net
work in the distance ranges 10 to 610 km are used. Mean P/Lg spectral
ratios in the band 1 - 25 Hz are about 0.5 and 1.25 for earthquakes an
d explosions, respectively, in the eastern United States. We find that
the high-frequency P/Lg spectral amplitude ratio in the frequency ban
d 5 - 25 Hz is a reliable and robust discriminant for classifying thes
e events. A linear discriminant function analysis indicates that the P
/Lg spectral amplitude ratio method provides discrimination power with
a total misclassification probability of about 1%. Single-hole instan
taneous explosions and ripple-fired quarry blasts have somewhat differ
ent P/Lg spectral ratios, but as a group are distinctly different from
earthquakes.