Focal mechanisms overview

Abstract

A new computer application is created to use graphical representation of seismological data sets namely focal mechanism data to help seismologist to minimize complexities, recognize trends, discover data patterns and finally to develop the hypotheses. These graphical representation views are widely used by seismologist to drive information out of its long datasets. Using visual studio dot net 2012 to create a windows based software tools for focal mechanism datasets analysis using triangle diagrams. Another analysis tool is bar graph using basics of rose diagrams to plot the distribution of data frequency of each class. The third analysis tool included is a 4D plot of the distribution of earthquake events versus its depths and magnitude. A new classification of plotting double-couple earthquake focal mechanisms on the ternary diagram is defined. The application software has many advantages like automatic writing the analysis reports which contain all calculated information represented in the software graphs. This report helps for advanced processing. Automatic prototype analysis reporting can be considered as the first step (milestone) for applying expert systems in focal mechanism analysis tools. The application program interface (API) are designed to be user friendly and use interactive screens to customize the analysis.