Reliable Earthquake Source Parameters Using Distributed Acoustic Sensing Data Derived from Coda Envelopes

Abstract

A challenge in fully using distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) data collected from fiber-optic sensors is correcting the signals to provide quantitative true ground motion. Such corrections require considering coupling and instrument response issues. In this study, we show via comparison with geophone and broadband seismometer data that we can use coda envelope calibration techniques to obtain absolute moment magnitudes and source spectra from DAS data. Here, we use DAS and nodal geophones deployed as part of a geothermal monitoring experiment at Brady Hot Springs, Nevada, and on a 20 km long dark fiber of the ESnet’s Dark Fiber Testbed–a U.S. Department of Energy user facility, in Sacramento, California. Several DAS line segments with colocated geophone stations were used to compare the amplitude variation using narrowband S-wave coda envelopes. The DAS coda envelope decay at each point showed remarkable similarity with coda envelopes from different events in each narrow frequency range examined. The coda envelopes are used to determine Mw magnitudes and source spectra from regional stations without any major scatter. Because coda waves arrive from a range of directions, the azimuthal sensitivity of DAS is somewhat ameliorated. We show that the openly available seismic coda calibration software toolkit can be used for straightforward and faster processing of large DAS datasets for source parameters and subsurface imaging.