M. Popa et M. Radulian, Test of the empirical Green's function deconvolution on Vrancea (Romania) subcrustal earthquakes, STUD GEOPH, 44(3), 2000, pp. 403-429
Vrancea is one of the few singular seismic regions of the world where inter
mediate-depth earthquakes are permanently generated (around 10 events/month
with M-L > 3) within an extremely confined focal volume. This particularit
y and the relatively large number of short-period waveforms recorded by the
Romanian local network provides us the opportunity to test the performance
of the empirical Green's function technique in retrieving the source time
function and source directivity of the Vrancea earthquakes. Three earthquak
es that occurred on March 11, 1983 (M-L = 5.4), April 12, 1983 (M-L = 5.1)
and August 7, 1984 (M-L = 5.1) in the lower part of the subducting lithosph
ere (h approximate to 150 km) were analyzed. A set of 28 adjacent events (3
.0 < M-L < 4.4) which occurred between 1981 and 1997 were selected as corre
sponding empirical Green's functions. To test the confidence of the retriev
ed source time function, we compare the deconvolved pulses using Green's fu
nctions of different sizes and recorded simultaneously by short-period and
broad-band instruments. Our tests show that the durations of the source tim
e function is well-constrained and is not affected by the limited frequency
range of the short-period instruments, or by the relative difference in th
e focal mechanism between the main event and Green's event. The apparent du
ration of the source time function outlines source directivity effects, and
when these effects are sufficiently strong, they can identify the real fau
lt plane. Relatively short source duration and correspondingly high stress
drop values are in agreement with other previous results emphasizing a spec
ific seismic regime in the lower part of the Vrancea subducting lithosphere
.