Love Wave or Slip Wave?

Abstract

Conventional models of the structure of the Earth, such as the Preliminary Reference Earth Model (PREM), assume a bonded interface between the crust and the upper mantle. The bonded contact model is consistent with the observation of Love waves during an earthquake. However, anomalies in the Love wave dispersion have been reported in the literature. When slip occurs at the crust-mantle interface, another kind of an interfacial wave, called the slip wave can exist. It is shown that the dispersion relation of the slip wave, with a slip weakening friction law, appears to be in agreement with the observations at seismic frequencies. This suggests that slip could occur at the crust-mantle interface.