An overview of seismic attenuation in the Northern Appalachians Seismic Zone, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia

In this study we investigated coda-wave attenuation (QC) from the northern Appalachian region of eastern Canada in the two provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. We used earthquake recordings from 8 broadband and 2 short period seismograph stations of the Canadian National Seismograph Network (CNSN) across the region. Our dataset is comprised of 476 earthquakes recorded between 1983 and 2021 with magnitudes ranging from 1.5 to 4.1, depths from 0 to 20 km (with the vast majority being <10 km) and epicentral distances of 5 to 100 km. This gives a total of 261 high signalto- noise (S/N) traces (S/N greater than or equal to 5.0) useful for QC calculation (with a maximum ellipse parameter, a2, of 100) across the region. Coda windows were selected to start at tc = 2tS (two times the travel time of the direct S wave), and were filtered at center frequencies of 2, 4, 8, 12 and 16 Hz. Our study reveals a consistent pattern. We find that in the northern New Brunswick, the lowest Q0 values (e.g., Q0 of 61) are at station KLN which is the closest station to the epicenter of the 1982 Miramichi earthquake (M 5.8). The highest Q0 values that we find (e.g., Q0 of 178) are at station GGN, located in the southern New Brunswick. Smaller Q0 values for stations in the north (closer to the Charlevoix-Kamouraska seismic zone or Miramichi source area) is explained by Jin and Aki's (1988) finding that Q0 is lower in the vicinity of large earthquakes. An average for all the data results in a Q relationship of QC = 99f0.96 for the frequency band of 2 to 16 Hz for the entire region.