Scattering of SH Waves by Subsurface Topography

Horizontally polarized shear waves in an elastic alluvial valley of arbitrary shape perfectly bonded to a linearly elastic, homogeneous and isotropic half space are considered. The valley is subjected to a steady state horizontal displacement field. Total displacement field is evaluated along the interface between the half space and alluvial valey. Comparison with known exact solutions for simple geometry provided the following conclusions: 1) the method provides excellent results for wide range of frequencies, 2) for a fixed number of sources, the results are more accurate at lower frequencies, and 3) as the number of sources increases, the accuracy increases.