Recalculating the local magnitude of events in the Hungarian National Seismological Bulletin

Local magnitude is one of the oldest and widely used term for characterizing the size of seismic events. Mostly based on the maximum amplitude measured on the components of the seismograms associated with the seismic event. The events in the Hungarian National Seismological Bulletin were relocated by Bondar et al. (2018). Before 2015 the bulletin did not contain amplitudes therefore it was not possible to calculate new local magnitudes for the new hypocenters. Moreover, the magnitudes were calculated by different methodology before 2015.

In this study, all three components of all available waveforms were collected for the events occurred between 1996 and 2016, and the local magnitudes were recalculated. Thus, we present a consistent data set for the whole period. Magnitude values based on both horizontal and vertical components are presented.

Amplitudes were measured on all three components, thus it was possible to compare the maximum amplitudes of the horizontal and vertical components recorded at stations in different geological conditions. For stations located on sediment, generally higher amplitude values were obtained on the horizontal components. The horizontal amplitude was 2.5 or 3 times larger for the Great Hungarian Plain stations on thick sediments. The differences between stations on firm bed rock were smaller.

The collected waveforms and amplitude measurements provide the opportunity to perform the calibration of the local magnitude scale to the geological conditions of Hungary.

 

 

Bondár, I., Mónus, P., Czanik, Cs., Kiszely, M., Gráczer, Z., Wéber, Z., the AlpArrayWorking Group. 2018: Relocation of Seismicity in the Pannonian Basin Using a Global 3D Velocity Model. Seismological Research Letters. pp.2284-2293.