abstract
This study proposes a method to estimate the seismic moment of regional and local earthquakes based on simple measurements made directly on Wood-Anderson seismograms. The method parallels the routine estimation of local magnitude in observatory work. The relation used is
where C is the maximum peak-to-peak amplitude read on a Wood-Anderson seismogram, D is the duration between the S arrival and the onset with amplitude C/d, Δ is epicentral distance, and a, b, p, and d are constants. The form of the logarithmic term is suggested by the analytical expression for moment (Keilis-Borok, 1960).
Least-squares fits were made to data from 73 Wood-Anderson records of 16 central California earthquakes with seismic moments already evaluated independently from spectral analysis or broadband displacement records. The values p = 1, d, = 3 proved appropriate and subsequent regression yielded
where Mo is dyne-cm, C in millimeters, D in seconds, and Δ in kilometers.
The corresponding moment-magnitude relation is
for 3 ≦ ML ≦ 6.2.
The latter fit is close to an earlier empirical result (Johnson and McEvilly, 1974) for central California based on fewer cases and a different range of magnitude (2.4 ≦ ML ≦ 5.1).
