Unusual, equivocal Rayleigh-dispersion curves for simple models taking into account the special propagation conditions in the valley of Mexico City (CDMX) – Preliminary results

Abstract

Other than commonly assumed in seismology, the phase velocity of Rayleigh waves not necessarily is a single-valued function of frequency. We demonstrate this for the first higher mode in simple models of a homogeneous layer on top of a homogeneous halfspace (LOH), which are used for the subsurface of the Texcoco zone in Mexico City valley in previous studies. In the structure of a homegenous layer with fixed bottom (LFB) the phenomenon exists for values of Poisson’s ratio between 0.19 and 0.5 and is most pronounced for P-velocity being three times S-velocity (Poisson’s ratio of 0.4375). This type of dispersion is demonstrated and a discussion of their possible fatal consequences for methods customarily used in seismology for dispersion analysis and synthesis of dispersion relations is presented.