Love wave or slip wave?

A model that explains the anomalies in the Love wave dispersion in the earth is presented. Conventionally, welded contact between the crust and the upper mantle is assumed, leading to Love wave generation when the earth is excited. However, the observations of SH wave dispersion at seismic frequencies is at variance with this model, at least for some crustal plates (Ekström, 2011). When frictional slip occurs at the crust-upper mantle interface, a new type of interfacial elastic wave called the antiplane slip wave can occur (Ranjith, 2017). It is shown that the antiplane slip waves can explain the observed anomalies in the Love wave dispersion.