Phase statistics of seismic coda waves

Phys Rev Lett. 2009 Jun 19;102(24):248501. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.102.248501. Epub 2009 Jun 16.

Abstract

We report the analysis of the statistics of the phase fluctuations in the coda of earthquakes recorded during a temporary experiment deployed at Pinyon Flats Observatory, California. The observed distributions of the spatial derivatives of the phase in the seismic coda exhibit universal power-law decays whose exponents agree accurately with circular Gaussian statistics. The correlation function of the phase derivative is measured and used to estimate the mean free path of Rayleigh waves.