Optimizing differential travel-time measurements with dynamic time warping

Abstract

Precise differential travel-time measurement is essential for earthquake relative locating. The waveform cross-correlation (WCC) technique is widely regarded as the most effective method for calculating the differential travel-time of seismic phases. However, for earthquake pairs with large magnitude differences, substantial biases can arise due to disparities in the duration of the initial pulse, potentially leading to significant mislocations, particularly for mainshocks. To overcome this limitation, we propose to use the dynamic time warping (DTW) algorithm to optimize differential travel-time calculation. Using high-quality earthquake waveform data from the San Andreas Fault (2012–2019), we systematically compared the performance of DTW and WCC, respectively. Our results demonstrate that DTW substantially improves differential travel-time measurements, especially in cases involving large magnitude differences. In addition, we tested the robustness of DTW using noisy seismic data, demonstrating its superior resilience to noise.

Keywords

dynamic time warping / waveform cross-correlation / differential travel-time measurement / magnitude difference

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