Massive focal mechanism solutions from deep learning in west Texas Available to Purchase

The focal mechanism provides seismological constraints on the geological faults that generate the passive seismicity and thus is important for regional seismotectonic research. Focal mechanism calculation based on the P-wave first-motion-polarity is a widely used method, particularly helpful for microseismic events. However, determining the P-wave first-motion polarity can be challenging and subjective for smaller magnitude events. Here, we propose a deep-learning method (EQpolarity) for determining the P-wave first-motion polarity using the vertical-component seismic waveforms. We apply the deep learning method to thousands of events on the TexNet catalog to obtain a massive dataset of focal mechanisms. Most of the focal mechanism solutions align well with the strikes, dips, and rakes of the known faults that were explored previously using full-waveform-based methods.