Estimation of shear wave quality factor in the region of the 2012 Ahar-Varzaghan twin earthquakes using aftershock data

The shear wave quality factor is one of the key parameters for earthquake and engineering seismology studies. In the present study, this factor was investigated in the region of the 2012 Ahar-Varzaghan twin earthquakes. We used a generalized inverse method based on the shear wave windows of the aftershocks of these two earthquakes. 2860 records of broadband three-components and 540 records of short-period single-component from 1,650 aftershocks with a magnitude of 0.2 to 3.0 were used. The records of the aftershocks obtained within 29 days by a temporal seismic network by the Earthquake Research Center - Ferdowsi University of Mashhad at five broad-band and five short-period stations. Since the generalized inverse method needs a reference site to remove the source effect, the choice of the reference site was done using the results of the H/V spectral ratio method at the broad-band stations, as well as the topographic location of the stations. The frequency dependence of the was regressed in the range of 0.1 to 10 Hz and as Q_s=43 f^1.52 . This low value and high frequency-dependency can be attributed to the high heterogeneity of the crust and the active seismicity of the region.