Geophysical models constitute an important component of calibration for nuclear explosion monitoring. We will focus on four major topics and their applications: (1) surface wave models, (2) receiver function profiles, (3) regional tomography models, and (4) stochastic geophysical models. First, we continue to improve upon our surface wave model by adding more paths. This has allowed us to expand the region to all of Eurasia and into Africa, increase the resolution of our model, and extend results to even shorter periods (7 sec). High-resolution models exist for the Middle East and the YSKP region. The surface wave results can be inverted either alone, or in conjunction with other data, to derive models of the crust and upper mantle structure. One application of the group velocities is to construct phase-matched filters in combination with regional surface-wave magnitude formulas to improve the mb:Ms discriminant and extend it to smaller magnitude events. Next, we are using receiver functions, in joint inversions with the surface waves, to produce profiles directly under seismic stations throughout the region. In the past year, we have been focusing on deployments throughout the Middle East, including the Arabian Peninsula and Turkey. By assembling the results from many stations, we can see how regional seismic phases are affected by complicated upper mantle structure, including lithospheric thickness and anisotropy. The next geophysical model item, regional tomography models, can be used to predict regional travel times such as Pn and Sn. The times derived by the models can be used as a background model for empirical measurements or, where these don't exist, simply used as is. Finally, we have been exploring methodologies such as Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) to generate data-driven stochastic models. We have applied this technique to the YSKP region using surface wave dispersion data, body wave travel time data, receiver functions, and gravity data. The models can be used to predict a number of geophysical measurements, including waveforms that can be generating using techniques such as finite difference and spectral element modeling.
