Investigating Rayleigh wave anisotropy in faulted media with three-component beamforming: insights from numerical models and applications for geothermal exploration

Rayleigh waves are prevalent in the ambient seismic noise wavefield and are thus often exploited in passive seismic methods to characterise the near subsurface. In fractured or faulted media, Rayleigh waves show azimuthal anisotropy that could provide information on the fault properties. However, the exact relationship between Rayleigh wave anisotropy and true anisotropic structures is not well known. This study used a three-component (3C) beam- forming toolbox to analyse numerical full waveform seismic wave propagation from conceptual models of fractured media. We identify Rayleigh waves in the synthetic data, compare observed Rayleigh wave anisotropy to structural anisotropy, and assess the effect array design and source locations have on Rayleigh wave analysis and observed anisotropy. Numerical analysis shows that the smaller the velocity contrast between fault and surrounding rock, the more complex the anisotropic response. We find that the slow directions of Rayleigh wave propagation can be a better indicator of fault strike than the fastest direction, when the velocity contrast between the two media are small.