Surface Wave Propagation Effects Observed at the Saudi Seismic Network

Global surface wave arrival angles (also called polarization data) are extremely useful data to constrain the shortwavelength structure in global surface wave phase velocity maps. This paper investigates the feasibility of using such data on a more regional scale to validate regional models. We measure the arrival angles at the Saudi Arabian Seismic Network and compare them with predictions calculated using published phase velocity maps. We find large discrepancies between data and existing maps and demonstrate the great potential such data have to constrain the regional structure around the Saudi Arabian Peninsula. A by-product of our procedure is the retrieval of the misalignment of the horizontal components of the seismic sensor. We find a significant misalignment of approximately 4 degrees for the seismometer at station AFIF.