Evaluating seismic source mechanism with phasor analysis

Phasor analysis is a means of identifying if there are a significant number of construction blasts with a population of natural earthquakes. The application of phasor analysis has been extended to mining-induced seismic data. With a subtle modification, it can be used to infer seismic source mechanism in a population of mining-induced seismic events. A statistically significant phasor sum is related to stress-driven rockmass fracturing. For mining-induced seismic events on geological features, the phasor sum is random. The analysis can potentially identify temporal changes in seismic source mechanism. In some cases, the results of phasor analysis are scale dependent, giving insight into the breakdown of self-similarity for some populations of seismic events.