Universal dispersion tables 1. Love waves across oceans and continents on a spherical earth

Abstract

The variational approach to surface wave dispersion problems has been largely replaced by the powerful method of Haskell which is exact and particularly convenient for use on digital computers. This paper shows how the two methods may be combined to yield dispersion curves which can be used to interpret data from any layered structure. A set of graphs and tables is presented which can be used to calculate the dispersion of Love waves in the period range of 4 to 1000 seconds over any spherical earth model. In addition, it is possible to determine by inspection which portion of the earth is contributing to a set of observed dispersion data thereby facilitating the design of an appropriate earth model. These tables can be used to determine how much freedom can be taken with proposed models without violating dispersion data. Application to the inverse problem is immediate.