The relative contributions of scattering and viscoelasticity to the attenuation of S waves in Earth's mantle

deSilva, Susini; Cormier, Vernon F.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/se-11-161-2020

Articles | Volume 11, issue 1

https://doi.org/10.5194/se-11-161-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/se-11-161-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 11, issue 1

Research article

|

29 Jan 2020

Research article |

| 29 Jan 2020

The relative contributions of scattering and viscoelasticity to the attenuation of S waves in Earth's mantle

Susini deSilva and Vernon F. Cormier

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/se-11-161-2020-supplement

Data sets

SH component synthetic seismograms S. deSilva and V. F. Cormier https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3460694

Short summary

Seismic waves attenuate with distance due to two effects: (1) removal of energy by internal friction and (2) redistribution of energy into different distances and time windows by scattering from heterogeneous Earth structure. The relative contribution of these two effects is estimated by synthesizing seismograms having varying amounts of internal friction and heterogeneities. The attenuation of observed S waveforms requires contributions from both internal friction and scattering.