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Lab 6: Getting To Know SAC: Simple Examples

SAC is an interactive command line program for seismology that allows users to generate seismic functions, apply filters, and analyze real seismic data; it contains commands for generating test signals, applying filters like BANDPASS, and visualizing frequency responses and particle motion of seismic waves; the document provides examples of using SAC to create sine waves and impulse functions, apply different filters to them, read in real earthquake data to analyze body and surface waves using filters and cut windows, and examine P-wave particle motion on a seismogram.

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85 views2 pages

Lab 6: Getting To Know SAC: Simple Examples

SAC is an interactive command line program for seismology that allows users to generate seismic functions, apply filters, and analyze real seismic data; it contains commands for generating test signals, applying filters like BANDPASS, and visualizing frequency responses and particle motion of seismic waves; the document provides examples of using SAC to create sine waves and impulse functions, apply different filters to them, read in real earthquake data to analyze body and surface waves using filters and cut windows, and examine P-wave particle motion on a seismogram.

Uploaded by

Geo Fisika
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Lab 6: Getting to know SAC

SAC is an interactive command driven program. This means that you must type a command to get
SAC to do something. It does not prompt you for input.

%sac

Simple Examples

Generate an impulse function and store it in SAC's memory. To see what this function looks like on
your screen type:

sac>FUNCGEN IMPULSE (fg impulse)


sac>BEGINDEVICES device (bd x)
sac>PLOT (p)

In this example device is the name of the graphics device you are using. If you don't use the
BEGINDEVICES command, SAC will use the default device which is X windows on most.

The FUNCGEN command can generate a number of different functions. This is very useful when first
learning how to use SAC because you can see how the other SAC operations work on these functions.
For example, type:

sac>fg seismogram
sac>p

Now, lets make a printable postscript file


sac>bd sgf
sac>p
sac>sgftops f001.sgf example.ps 1 y
sac>q
%gs example.ps

The following example generates a 2 Hz sine wave in SAC's memory. The function will contain 200
data points and have a sampling interval of 0.01 seconds.

%sac
sac>FUNCGEN SINE 2 NPTS 200 DELTA 0.01
sac>p

When you specify a value for a particular option, this value becomes the new current value. This
means you don't have to keep entering values for options that you don't want to change. For example,
you can now generate this same 2 Hz sine wave using the same sampling interval but with 400 data
points by simply typing:

sac>FUNCGEN NPTS 400


sac>p

Filtering

All commands have ``nice'' default values for most options. The use of current and default values for
command options can save you a lot of typing. For example, let's look at the BANDPASS command.
This command applies a bandpass filter to the data currently in memory:

sac>FUNCGEN IMPULSE NPTS 100 DELTA .01


sac>BANDPASS BESSEL CORNER .1 .3 NPOLES 4
sac>p

These two commands generate an impulse function and then apply a bandpass filter to that impulse.
The filter is a four-pole Bessel filter with corner frequencies at 0.1 and 0.3 Hz.

You can see the amplitude response by taking the Fourier transform and using the PLOTSP
command:

sac>FFT
sac>PLOTSP AM

You can now try a different set of corner frequencies very easily:

sac>FUNCGEN
sac>BANDPASS CORNER .2 .5

SAC generates the same impulse function and applies the same Bessel filter except for the new corner
frequencies.

Now play around with the Bessel and Butterworth filter options. Remember to reset the impulse
function with each new filter. If you prefer, you may play with the filters using the default
seismogram generated by

sac>fg seismogram

Real Data & Plotting

I have placed data from the Jan. 2008 Mw 6.4 Queen Charlotte earthquake in
/gaia/home/hdeshon/ESCI7205/QChar. This was a strike slip event on the mid-ocean ridge system
offshore Canada.

Read in the vertical channel (BHZ).

Look at the header (LH). What was the event depth? Which station is closest? Which is furthest
away.

Now look at a range of high and low frequencies using high and low pass filters. What happens to
the surface waves using hp filters? What happens to the body waves using lp filters?

Use the XLIM command to zoom in and out on the P wave onset.

Working with station COR, CUT the three waveforms so that they extend from the origin time to the
end of the most obvious surface waves. Write these waveforms to new files. Try rotating the
horizontal components and saving the output.

Particle Motion

Read the help for command ppm. Change directories to ~hdeshon/ESCI7205/PPK_Example. Read in
the vertical and a horizontal for station GLST. Use ppk to choose a limit around the P-wave and then
use ppm to look at the P-wave particle motion. Is this what you expected?

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