EARTHQUAKE FAQBASICS
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Earthquake Focal Mechanism For A Right-Lateral Strike-Slip Fault
The top diagram shows a focal mechanism for a strike slip fault like one that would be published along side an earthquake report. The middle and bottom diagrams show that a focal mechanism is actually a projection on the lower hemisphere surrounding the hypocenter of the motion of the seismic waves as they leave the earthquake source. At the seimographic stations located at the points on the lower diagram, an observer would see the accompanying waveforms; notice especially the different polarity of the waveforms associated with compressional and dilatational quadrants.
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