Seismic wave anisotropy in the upper crust of the Bam area in the south-central Iran

The seismic anisotropy is a subject of interest for seismologists and geologists. The information of seismic anisotropy has significant role in geology interpretations (Savage, 1999). In this study, we have investigated the upper crust anisotropy in Bam area by means of shear wave splitting Sg phase. We have selected more than three hundred aftershocks from IIEES local temporary seismic network that had been installed after 26 December 2003 Bam earthquake. In the present study, due to using local waveform data, type of Sg phase and shallow depth of events, the estimated values of seismic anisotropy could be related to heterogeneities within upper crust of Bam area.
The shear wave, upon entering the anisotropic region, splits into two phases with polarizations and velocities that caused properties of the anisotropic media. The phases, polarized into fast and slow components, progressively split in time as they propagate through the anisotropic media. This split is preserved in any isotropic segments along the ray path and can be observed as a time delay (?t) between the two horizontal components of motion. Polarity and amplitude are strongly affected by the azimuth of arrival. The orientation of anisotropy is estimated trough measuring the azimuth of fast component (?). The magnitude of anisotropy is estimated by measuring the time split (?t) between the fast and slow components of motion. Our aim in this study is to calculate the magnitude (?t) of anisotropy and direction (?) of the fast wave as the main parameters of seismic wave anisotropy in Bam area in south east of Kerman Province. For measuring anisotropy parameters, we have used the Teanby et al. (2004) shear wave splitting technique. This method can be divided into three main groups, where the search for the optimal pair of splitting parameters is based on: (1) the minimization of a penalty function which represents the difference between observed and predicted transverse components (e.g., Vinnik et al., 1989); (2) the maximization of the cross-correlation between the fast and slow components or linear particle motion (e.g. Bowman and Ando, 1987; Levin et al.,1999); and (3) the minimization of energy on the corrected transverse component reassembled from the optimal fast and slow components ( Silver and Chan, 1988 and 1991).
The results for 15 seismic stations show two perpendicular main directions for shear wave anisotropy. These two dominant seismic anisotropy directions as given in table 1, can be considered as geological fabric and the principal stress directions. In the present study, one of the main seismic anisotropy directions is perpendicular to the faults trend for the nearest seismic stations on the fault border. Therefore, some of our results indicated that the polarization of the fast split shear wave is parallel to direction of the maximum horizontal stress. The second of the main seismic anisotropy directions is parallel to the faults trend, especially for that stations far a way fault border. The size of anisotropy is about 0.034 to 0.1 S.