CE-312

Engineering Geology and Seismology

Seismic waves

Instructor:
Dr. Shahid Ullah

Earthquake Engineering Center

Department of Civil Engineering, UET Peshawar.
 Contents of the Lecture
 Waves, seismic waves.
 Waves terminology
 Types of seismic waves.
 Seismic wave propagation
 Travel times
 Travel time curves
 Locating earthquakes

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 What is a wave?
Wave is a disturbance that transfers energy from one place
to another. Waves are periodic in both time and space (they
have time period and wave length).
Seismic wave is an elastic wave generated by an impulse
such as an earthquake, explosion, implosion, volcanic
eruption, etc.
Seismic waves travel both:
 Along the surface of the
earth, and
 Along the body of the
earth.

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 Wave Terminology
 Wavelength is the distance between successive points of equal amplitude
and phase on a wave (for example, crest to crest or trough to trough). Its a
measure of the spatial width of a wave. It has units of length (m, km).
 Period The period is the time interval required for one full cycle of a wave.
Period has units of time (s)
 Frequency The frequency of a wave is the number of cycle of waves per
unit time, such as the ground shaking up and down or back and forth during
an earthquake. It is one over the period. It has units of one over time (Hz).
 Amplitude is a measure of the height of the wave. It has units of
displacement (cm, m).
 Wave Speed is the speed that a wave propagates in a medium. It shows how
fast a point on the ground is shaking as a result of an earthquake. It is not a
dynamic quantity –it is a fixed material property. (like density).
 Elastic Wave is a motion in a medium in which, when particles are
displaced, a force proportional to the displacement acts on the particles to
restore them to their original position. If a material has the property of
elasticity and the particles in a certain region are set in vibratory motion, an
elastic wave will be propagated.

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Wave Terminology

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 Analogy between sound and seismic waves
 Seismic waves (p-wave) represent acoustic(sound)
energy and so are analogous to speech:

Speech Earthquakes
1). Vocal cords vibrate 1). A locked fault segment fails
2). Sound waves propagate through (ruptures)
atmosphere 2). Seismic waves propagate
3). Ears record these vibrations through earth
4). Brain processes the recordings 3). Seismometers record these
vibrations
4). Seismologists process these
recordings (seismograms)

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 Types of seismic waves
During an earthquake, different types of seismic waves are
produced. The two main types, based on the path they take
in the earth to travel are :
 Body wave: they can travel
through the interior of the
earth .e.g. P and S waves.
 Surface wave: results from
the interaction of between
body waves and the surface
and surficial layers of earth.
They travel along the earth‘s
surface, with amplitudes that
decrease exponentially with
depth. e.g. L and R waves.
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 Types of seismic waves
Seismic Waves

Body Waves Surface Waves

P S Waves
Waves Love (L) Waves
Rayleigh (R) Waves
SH waves SV waves

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 Primary waves (P)
 The P waves carry energy through
the Earth as longitudinal waves or
compressional waves (like sound
waves), moving particles in the
same line as the direction of the
wave.
 P-waves are essentially sound
waves and travel through solids,
liquids or gases.
 P waves are the fastest body waves
and arrive before the S waves, and
surface waves.
 They are less destructive than the S
waves and surface waves that
follow them, due to their smaller
amplitudes

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 Secondary waves (S)
 They are also known as shear or
transverse waves, causing shearing
deformations as they travel through a
material.
 Particle motion is at right angles to the
direction of the wave.
 These waves move more slowly than P
wave (their speed is about 60% of that
of P waves in a given material). S
waves are several times larger in
amplitude than P waves for earthquake
sources.
 S-waves travel only through solids,
because fluids (liquids and gasses)
have no shearing stiffness (i.e. fluids
cannot support shear stresses).
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Secondary waves (S)

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Body waves visualization

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 Surface waves
 They are so called because their motion is restricted to near the
ground surface.
 They are like ripples of water that travel across a lake.
 They travel more slowly than body waves.
 Because of their low frequency, long duration, and large amplitude,
they can be the most destructive type of seismic wave.
 Two main types are Love & Rayleigh

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 Rayleigh waves
 Its motion of particle at shallow depth is retrograde (elliptical).
 They are the most complex, and the slowest.
 They are also called comressional surface waves.

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 Love waves
 Its motion is essentially the same as that of S waves that have no
vertical component.
 It moves the ground from side to side in a horizontal plane but at
right angles to the direction of propagation.
 Love waves generally travel faster than Rayleigh waves.
 They are also called shear surface waves.

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Surface waves

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 Comparison of seismic waves
Surface Waves Body Waves
 Large amplitude  Small amplitude
 Long wavelength  Short wavelength
 Wide range of frequencies (large  Narrow frequency band
bandwidth)  Travel more quickly
 Dispersive  Produced by all earthquakes
 Travel slowly
 Not produced by deep
earthquakes

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 Interpretation of seismogram

P waves arrive first to a recording station, then S wave and then

Surface waves.

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 Seismic wave propagation
As seismic waves travel through Earth, they interact with
the internal structure of the planet and:
 Refract–bend / change direction
 Reflect–bounce off of a boundary (echo)
 Disperse –spread out in time (seismogram gets longer)
 Attenuate –decay of wave amplitude
 Diffract –non-geometric “leaking” of wave energy
 Scatter –multiple bouncing around

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 Seismic wave propagation
Refraction
The direction in which a seismic wave is traveling can be
changed if the wave travels from one material into another
(e.g. from the crust into the mantle).

(Charles Ammon, Penn State)

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 Seismic wave propagation
Snell’s Law (or law of refraction) describes the relationship
betwen the angles of incidence and refraction.

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 Seismic wave propagation
Refraction (continued)
What happens if we have several layers with increasing velocities?

Refraction plays a big

role in body wave
propagation because
the velocity changes
with depth in Earth.

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 Seismic wave propagation
P and S waves refraction in Earth

P-Wave Propagation S-Wave Propagation

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 Seismic wave propagation
Reflection
 Reflections are like echoes. When a wave hits a boundary
between two materials, part is refracted and part is
reflected.
 The reflected angle is equal to the incident angle.

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 Travel Times
 Travel time, T, is defined as:

T = distance / velocity

 Example: the travel times of P-and S-waves are

 Tp= distance / P-velocity

 Ts= distance / S-velocity

 The complexity of seismograms is a result of the many different waves

that arrive at the seismometer at different times.

 Since P-waves travel faster than S-wave, the time separation between the
two is larger at greater distances.

 With experience, and an understanding of seismic waves and

propagation, you can identify the various wiggles using their arrival time
and the direction of ground vibration.
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 Travel times
The propagation velocity of P- and S-waves, Vp and Vs
respectively, depends only on the density and elastic
properties of the rock or soil through which they pass.
E= Young‘s Modulus
or elastic modulus
ρ = density of the
earth crust
ν= Possion’s ratio

(2  2 )
V p / Vs 
(1  2 )

If =0.3, then Vp=1.87 Vs

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 Travel times
Body waves velocities in different materials

 Typical speeds of P-waves are 330 m/s in air, 1450 m/s in water and about 5000
m/s in granite.

 S-waves speed is about 60% of that of P waves in a given material. S-waves

cann’t travel in Water.
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 Travel times
Travel time curve: is a graph of arrival times, commonly P or S
waves, recorded at different points as a function of distance from
the seismic source. Seismic velocities within the earth can be
computed from the slopes of the resulting curves.

(Frank Wattenberg, Department of

Mathematics, Montana State
University)

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Locating earthquake epicenter using graphical method
• You need to have recordings from
three recording stations (A, B, C).

• Find time of arrival of P and s

waves tp & ts from each recording
and get (ts-tp).
• find D from each recording using
D=(ts-tp)x (VsVp)/(Vp-Vs)

• D=(ts-tp)8 • if Vp and Vs are not known, use a

Assuming Vp=5.8 Km/s and thumb rule that D = (tp-ts)× 8
Vp=3 Vs
• So you get 3 values of D for each
station. D is actually hypocental
distance. However for shallow EQs
it is nearly equal to epicental
distance.
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Locating earthquake epicenter using graphical method

 Draw circle around each station

with radius equal to their
corresponding “D” because D is
taken equal to epicentral
distance.
 The point of intersection is the
epicenter.
 if the circles do not intersect at
a common point, it means the
EQ is not shallow and the
assumption of hypocentral dist.
equal to epicentral distance is
not valid.

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 Finding “D” from Seismic Travel-time Curve
If the speeds of the seismic waves are not known, use Travel-Time
curve for that region to get the distance

1. Measure time (t)

between P and S wave on
seismogram
2. Fit t in b/w the P and S
wave curves.
3. Read from the graph the
corresponding value of D

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