Earthquake source kinematics of moderate earthquakes from the inversion of apparent source time functions

We present an approach to infer the slip and rupture velocity distributions on the fault plane from the non-linear inversion of the apparent source time functions, obtained from the empirical Green???s function deconvolution method. The main advantage of this technique is that it allows overcoming, in the forward modelling, the limitations related to the computation of the Green???s function, as the choice of a correct and reliable earth propagation model. We perform a parameter resolution and uncertainty study, which is based on the analysis of the misfit function in the neighbourhood of the best-fitting model. In this paper, we present the results obtained by applying the technique to synthetic and real records from an Mw 4 event which occurred during the 2009 L???Aquila (central Italy) aftershock sequence. Results show a heterogeneous slip distribution, characterized by two main high slip patches located NW of the hypocentre and an average slip of 3.7 cm, corresponding to a seismic model of about 0.82 × 10^15 Nm.