Uncertainty of moment tensor determination from surface wave analysis for shallow earthquakes

We treat the problem of the non-uniqueness of the moment tensor inversion for shallow earthquakes from long period surface wave data. We give an existence condition for double couples radiating the same long period surface waves as the deviatoric moment tensor obtained by such inversion. We describe the family of such double couples and show that they may provide better estimates of double couple mechanisms than the traditional “best double-couple” solution. We demonstrate the results of application to four large shallow earthquakes with different source signatures.