Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, Vol. 96, No. 1, pp. 306312, February 2006, doi: 10.

1785/0120050039

Short Notes
Three Theorems of Earthquake Location
by Cinna Lomnitz

Abstract I prove three theorems on earthquake location in the laterally homogeneous, radially concentric layered earth showing that (1) epicenters of earthquakes
are locatable without using numerical travel-time information, (2) focal-depth residuals change sign at some epicentral distance that is a function of the focal depth but
not of the distance residuals, and (3) the distance D between two random points on
the surface of a sphere is distributed as sinD. Theorem (1) implies that the epicenter
can be located without simultaneously solving for hypocentral depth or origin time.
Theorem (2) suggests that the focal depth should never be determined by joint regression on all four hypocentral parameters. Theorem (3) suggests a likely reason
why late readings tend to overpower accurate readings when a standard least-squares
technique is used. Together these theorems suggest that the problem of earthquake
location is ill posed.
Joint least-square regression will lead to the true hypocenter only if well-posedness
is restored by restricting the class of admissible solutions using a priori knowledge,
such as a travel-time table. But if the travel-time table is derived from the hypocentral
solutions there is a feedback between location errors and errors in the travel-time
tables, and local minima cannot be eliminated. Gutenberg instructively attempted to
correct for bias due to azimuthal clustering, by assuming that residuals were nonnegative vectors.
Introduction
Large mislocations of earthquake hypocenters are not
uncommon. The published confidence bounds of earthquake
location errors are widely believed to be unrealistic. However, an objective comparison between different location
techniques, or a calibration of errors arising from various
approaches, is hampered by the scarcity of standard measurements from controlled sources.
Jeffreys (1970, p. 490) pointed out that the standard
error is a minimum estimate of uncertainty. Mislocations
are common even in large, well-recorded events. For example, the 1960 Chile earthquake (Mw 9.5) was found to be
mislocated by about 75 km landward after its relocation by
seismic-imaging techniques (Krawczyk et al., 2003). Menke
and Schaff (2004) tested routine location procedures on simulated data and concluded that the errors were as large as or
larger than those found from relative locations for pairs of
earthquakes.
Current procedures of earthquake location may be selfconsistent without being necessarily accurate, because they
are not checked against data from controlled sources. In this
article we re-examine some of the fundamental assumptions
that underlie location procedures. We show that the problem
of locating a point inside a radially symmetrical sphere from

observations on the surface is an ill-posed problem in four

dimensions (three spatial dimensions plus origin time). Linear regression in the time domain may be useful as an approximation, especially when the flat-earth approximation
may be assumed to be valid. But in the general case the
errors in the hypocentral depth may contaminate the epicentral solution.
Many seismologists are aware of these problems, yet
they continue to use the present location methods because
they yield self-consistent solutions. This consistency is due
to bootstrap procedures, as the hypocentral solutions are fed
back into the travel-time tables. Calibration of networks by
large controlled explosions is still rarely performed.
One may wonder why we tolerate such admittedly unsatisfactory procedures. The answer, as Sir Harold Jeffreys
once explained to me, is that the location problem has been
seen as a subsidiary problem to the construction of traveltime tables. Errors in the location of individual events were
considered of negligible importance, as it will all come out
in the wash. The underlyingbut unprovedassumption
is that the errors are normally distributed and unbiased.
The statistical theory of earthquake observations is not
highly developed. For example, the fact that the focal-depth
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Short Notes

component of the travel-time residuals changes sign in the

near field seems to have been overlooked (see theorem 2).
Generations of station seismologists faced the thankless
chore of trying to pick an emerging signal in the presence
of noise, yet the fact that this operation is inherently biased
was ignored. When I once attempted to point this out, Jeffreys was upset. He claimed that no such bias existed because seismogram readers would attempt to overcompensate
for late readings by picking some spurious early noise for
the true signal. I have never found a seismologist who actually did that.
Without a reliable set of controlled sources observed
over a wide range of distances, bias is hard to prove. The
problem has not been widely studied, but it seems reasonable
to expect that a P arrival will be easier to pick if the frequency of the signal exceeds the frequency of the noise. As
distance of propagation selectively damps out the higher frequencies, distant arrivals are normally correlated with lower
frequencies and larger positive errors.
In Jeffreys (1970), the heading Determination of epicenters is immediately followed by the statement This is
done by the method of least squares (p. 71). Thus it has
been taken for granted (starting with Geiger, 1910) that all
four hypocentral parameters (the latitude , the longitude k,
the focal depth h, and the origin time t) are independent and
normally distributed random variables. Otherwise the
method of least squares will not work. But Jeffreys (1970)
cautiously added that it is usually desirable to restrict the
solution to the best stations (p. 71) or to use weighted least
squares.

Theorem (1), on Locating Seismic Events from

Surface Observations on a Sphere
Let E be the epicentral area of some event O at depth h
below the surface of a radially layered sphere. Let ti, i 1,
. . ., n be the measured arrival times at n stations located on
the surface of the sphere. Then E is locatable to any desired
accuracy without using additional travel-time information.
However, the focal depth h remains indeterminate.
Proof (see Anderson, 1978; Lomnitz, 1982). Suppose,
without loss of generality, that the n arrivals are ordered by
increasing lateness, so that t1 is the earliest arrival time and
ti ti1 for all i. Let Mi be the great circle that bisects the
arc [Pi, Pi1] between any sequential pair of stations (Fig.
1). Let Hi be the left hemisphere bounded by Mi, that is, the
hemisphere that contains all stations P1, P2, . . ., Pi and therefore all surface points with arrival times earlier than ti. Hi
must therefore contain the epicentral area E, which is the
area of minimum travel times on the surface of the earth.
Therefore E Hi.
We now repeat this operation for all n 1 sequential
pairs of stations. In every case we obtain a left hemisphere
H that contains the epicenter. Note that the actual observations t do not come into the procedure, as only the order of

Figure 1. Proof of theorem (1). The open circles

are stations numbered in sequential order of first arrivals. M1, M2, . . . are great circles bisecting pairs of
sequential stations. The shaded area is a polygon that
contains the epicenter.

arrivals is used. Now consider the intersection Q H1

H2 . . . Hn1 of all left hemispheres. This polygonal
area on the surface of the sphere has the property that
E Q,

(1)

using the basic theorem of set theory, which says that if A

B, then A B A. Thus the intersection of all left
hemispheres contains the epicenter. The size of the convex
polygon E depends on the number and configuration of stations. The larger the number of observations, the smaller is
the probable size of E. Thus, by increasing the density of
stations we may locate the epicenter to any desired accuracy
without using the numerical values {ti} of the arrival-time
observations. Only the rank sequence is used.
Corollary 1. Note, however, that the focal depth h cannot
be located in this manner. For the intersection Q between
meridian planes Mi is a pyramidal volume bounded by the
epicentral polygon E, with its vertex at the center of the
sphere. The focus must be somewhere within this volume,
but its depth h cannot be ascertained, because all Mi go
through the center of the sphere. This indeterminacy may be
attributed to the fact that seismic observations are restrained
to the surface. Thus no matter how small the area of the
epicentral polygon, the focal depth remains indeterminate.
The efficiency of this location procedure may be slightly
improved if instead of bisecting the arcs [Pi, Pi1] we partition them in proportion to the differences in the travel times

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Short Notes

Ti Ti1. But even this simple idea involves serious problems. The travel time is a positive increasing function of the
epicentral distance D, but we dont know how to estimate
the intercept at the origin.
Corollary 2. In principle, one might estimate a provisional
travel-time curve T(D) by fitting the arrival-time differences
to the epicentral distance D. Next we may try to find the
velocity structure of the interior by inverting T(D). In this
way, one should be able to obtain increasingly accurate estimates of the focal depth h. But such estimates will be affected by errors in measuring the arrival times and in estimating the travel-time curveparticularly, the zero-distance
interceptin the presence of lateral heterogeneity. The estimation of the epicentral parameters (, k) might remain
reasonably free of these errors as shown by theorem (1), as
long as we keep it separate from the procedure of focal-depth
estimation.

Theorem (2), on Estimating the Focal Depth

Let E be the epicenter of an event O, determined as in
theorem (1). Consider the focal depth h below E in the radially layered sphere. Let Di, i 1, . . . n be the measured
epicentral distances at n stations located on the surface of
the sphere. Now consider the travel-time error s(D, dh) associated with an error dh in focal depth. Notice that this error
changes sign at some critical epicentral distance Dc (Fig. 2).
The area within D Dc may be called the epicentral cap (or
the near field) for a focal depth h. When observations exist
both inside and outside the epicentral cap the error in focal
depth will contaminate the epicentral location if jointregression procedures are used.
Proof. Assume that the epicenter E is known exactly, but
that the focal depth h is unknown. From symmetry the traveltime error s associated with an error dh in focal depth depends only on the epicentral distance D (Fig. 2). We define
the critical distance Dc as the epicentral distance where a
ray through the equator of the focal sphere intersects the
surface of the earth. Since the error dh is normal to this ray
the path to Dc changes by an amount that is second-order in
dh. In other words, observations made at an epicentral dis-

Figure 2.

Proof of theorem (2).

tance Dc have a negligible effect on the focal-depth determination.

In the near field (D Dc) all arrival times have the
property that s 0, where s is the travel-time error corresponding to an error dh in focal depth, because all rays exit
the focal sphere through the upper hemisphere. Conversely,
in the far field all the rays will exit the focal sphere through
the lower hemisphere and we have s 0 (Fig. 2). This
means that a given travel-time residual s should be interpreted in opposite ways, depending on whether the observation is made inside or outside the epicentral cap.
But the critical distance Dc depends on the focal depth
h, which is unknown. Suppose that h 30 km; then Dc
might be somewhere around 75 km. But if h 100 km, Dc
could be around 300 km. If the focal depth is unknown all
stations at distances between 75 km and 300 km would be
ambiguous in terms of their influence on focal-depth determination. During joint regression, the sign of their contribution would depend on the result of the location procedure.
Yet these stations could well be crucial for locating the epicenter. Two stations with identical residuals located on either
side of Dc will cancel out in a joint-regression procedure.
Suppose that the location of the epicenter E is known
from a separate procedure such as described in theorem (1).
Let n and m be the numbers of observations in the near field
and the far field, respectively. Without loss of generality
assume n m. As any pair of residuals q on either side of
Dc will have opposite effects on the estimation of the focal
depth, their joint effect may be reduced to a remainder
qinside qoutside at the near-field station.
Consider now the problem of joint hypocenter determination, where the epicenter E, the focal depth h, and the
origin time t are located jointly by multiple regression on all
four independent variables. There are m!/(m n)! possible
configurations of pairs of stations, which means that the
problem is nonunique since any remainder will contaminate
the epicentral solution and every configuration will produce
a different remainder. This may be explained as follows.
Suppose that the location of the epicenter E is unknown
and we attempt to determine the epicenter and the focal
depth by joint regression in four-dimensional parameter
space. Thus the travel-time residuals q will be partitioned
between four normal equations. For any given epicentral solution the pairs of focal depth residuals dh that straddle the
boundary between the near field and the far field tend to
cancel out, and the leftover residuals will be split between
an epicentral correction and a focal-depth correction. But
there is no unique way of carrying out such a partition.
For every station configuration there will be a functional
dependence of the epicentral parameters on the focal depth.
In general there will be several local minima, and the solution will converge to a local minimum in the neighborhood
of the trial epicenter selected at the beginning of the iterative
procedure. A combination of positive residuals in the far
field with few negative residuals in the near field may even
pull the focus upward into the air (i.e., lead to a negative

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Short Notes

estimate of h). On the other hand, where there are many nearfield stations, as in California, the focal depths may be systematically overestimated.

Theorem (3), on the Distribution of Random

Observations on a Sphere
The distance D between random points on the surface
of a sphere is distributed as sinD.
Proof (Fig. 3). Unlike the preceding theorems, this theorem does not require an assumption of radial symmetry, or
any other special property of the internal structure of the
Earth. Consider two arbitrary points O, P on the surface of
the sphere. Let D be the angular distance OP. The shaded
annular area of width dD at a distance D equals 2pRsinDdD.
Then the probability of a random point P falling within the
shaded area is proportional to this area, normalized over the
area of the sphere (Fig. 3). Hence the probability of a point
P to be found at a distance between D and D dD from
point O is
Prob {D, D dD} 0.5 sinDdD

(2)

Figure 3.

Proof of theorem (3). Random points on

the surface of a sphere, O, P; angular distance between O and P, D; radius of the sphere, R; small thickness of an annular surface shaded) at distance D, dD.

and
F(D x) 0.5 (1 cosx) ,

0 x p,

(3)

where F is the cumulative probability distribution of the angular distance x. By differentiation, the probability density
is found to be f(x) 0.5 sinx.
Corollary 1. The epicentral location of earthquakes ought
not to depend on the location of seismic observations
(though a case might be made for the converse to be true!).
Yet the actual sample of arrival-time measurements is always likely to be dominated by distant observations.
For any given earthquake of epicenter O the probability
of a station P being located at some distance D looks like
Figure 4. This may be easily confirmed by plotting the actual
distribution of epicentral distances in a seismic bulletin.
Thus we should expect the observations to increase in number with increasing distance, up to a distance of 90 degrees,
and then decay back to zero at 180 degrees. Actually small
earthquakes are much more frequent than are large ones, and
small shocks are not recorded at large distances. Thus the
actual distribution begins to fall off well before 90 degrees:
it looks like the dotted line in Figure 4. The peak in the
distribution depends on the magnitude of the earthquake.
In conclusion, the probability of an observation is not
uniformly distributed in distance. Therefore the sample of
observations always tends to be dominated by distant observations. But the amplitude and the dominant frequency
of the signal decrease with distance while the noise remains
independent of distance, as it depends only on local conditions. Hence the signal/noise ratio tends to decrease with

Figure 4.

Distribution of distances between two

random points on a sphere.

distance. If distant observations also tend to be more numerous, we have a serious bias. The location procedure is
likely to be dominated by low-accuracy observations at large
distances.
Corollary 2. The joint-regression procedure may tend to
introduce a systematic error into the epicentral solution when

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Short Notes

distant readings are more numerous, and less accurate, than

are readings in the near field.
This corollary may seem unpersuasive at first sight, especially for a reader who is unfamiliar with observational
seismology. The problem is inherent to location procedures.
When distant observations tend to be late, near-field observations must tend to be early as a result of regression. The
bias may not seem to be obvious, but it is a result of plate
tectonics. Most earthquakes occur at plate boundaries, and
most plate boundaries are subduction margins. Most subduction margins are also oceancontinent transitions. For
obvious reasons, many more seismic stations are located on
continents than in ocean basins. All these factors gang up
against the valiant seismologist in his or her vain effort to
produce accurate, unbiased locations.
For an epicenter near Acapulco, Mexico, for example,
most Mexican and American stations are in the northwest
quadrant while European stations are in the northeast quadrant. The nearest stations in the southwest quadrant are
somewhere in Samoa or Australia. There are a few stations
in the southeast quadrant, but they are an order of magnitude
less numerous and powerful than are those in the north. The
bias is systematic for this location, yet it is less tragically so
than it would be, say, in South America or Indonesia.

An Ill-Posed Problem
A problem is well posed when a solution exists, is
unique, and depends continuously on the initial data. It is ill
posed when it fails to satisfy at least one of these criteria
(Hadamard, 1923). A well-known example of an ill-posed
problem is scene analysis, where one attempts to extract 3D
information from a 2D image.
The above theorems, and others like them, suggest that
the earthquake-location problem may be ill posed. For example, a least-square location procedure minimizes R(q2),
where q is the travel-time residual. This implies that
Prob{q} Prob{q}, as assumed by C. F. Gauss (1823)
in his derivation of the bell-shaped curve named after him.
But when a seismic signal arrives at a station it gradually
emerges from the local noise. The arrival time is picked with
some delay q, which reflects inversely the signal/noise
ratio. On the other hand, picking a signal in advance of its
actual arrival time is a purely mental phenomenon, since
there is nothing there to be picked. Thus a negative residual
is not the same kind of object as a positive residual. In one
case there is a signal, in the other the signal does not yet
exist. The bias is a result of causality.
Somewhat similarly, in joint-regression procedures an
error in focal depth does not affect the solution in the same
way as an error in latitude or in longitude. The bias is due
to spherical geometry. All our observations are on the surface of the sphere, and negative depths do not exist.
Well-posedness may be restored by restricting the class
of admissible solutions using a priori knowledge, such as a
travel-time table. In this case the solution space is assumed

to be convex, but local minima cannot be eliminated and

there is a feedback between location errors and the errors in
the travel-time tables.
The problem is compounded by the fact that we locate
an object in space by using measurements in the time domain. By reducing the problem to the time domain we blind
ourselves to the fact that the residuals are actually vectors.
A 1-sec residual is not the same thing (i.e., should not have
the same effect on the solution) as a residual of 1 sec to the
north.

Discussion
I realize that I have not provided a solid theory of earthquake location, or a remedial approach supported by real
data. The reason is clear. The location problem is ill posed
and there are not enough observations of controlled sources.
Controlled explosions are rarely large enough to calibrate a regional network. The early results using nuclear tests
for amending travel-time tables have been disappointing,
precisely because of serious discrepancies with tables in
common use. In the end, seismologists were tempted to
merge explosion data with earthquake data. Travel times
from earthquakes have even been used to correct explosion
data!
Statisticians are apt to suggest that travel-time residuals
should be transformed into distance vectors on the surface
of the sphere. But statistics on the sphere is an arcane subject
(Mardia and Gadsden, 1977). In theory there is no obvious
way of translating a least-square algorithm in the time domain to the space domain. Should we minimize the vectorial
sum of the distance residuals? This is not the correct answer
either.
Beno Gutenberg used a graphical location method that
was routinely utilized in Pasadena for years, particularly by
Charles F. Richter in the classical joint research work Seismicity of the Earth (Gutenberg and Richter, 1954). Many
solutions are on file at the Caltech Seismological Laboratory
where Gutenbergs famed yellow pads are still kept. While
the criteria used by Gutenberg to weigh stations were never
set down in writing, they could be inferred from the solutions, as the residuals were normally labeled.
Gutenberg realized, even before plate tectonics, that
seismic observations were not scattered at random about the
epicenter. They were clustered in certain azimuths and distance ranges. Stations in the near field or in the southern
continents were rare and might easily be overwhelmed by
distant stations, for example, in the United States or in Europe, during regression. More importantly, Gutenberg never
attempted to include the focal depth in his location procedure. Focal depth was estimated separately from reflected
phases such as pP, sP, and PcPnever by joint regression.
This was because Gutenberg was keenly aware of the fact
that the sign of the focal-depth residual changes over small
distances in the near field.
Consider an earthquake epicenter E(k,), where k is the

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Short Notes

latitude and is the longitude. Let E be a trial epicenter in

the neighborhood of E. For any set of n stations consider the
travel times ti, i 1, . . ., n. Gutenberg proposed to graph
the azimuth i, i 1, . . ., n of the observations against the
corresponding travel-time residuals qi, i 1, . . ., n; both
referred to the trial epicenter E (Fig. 5).
Now, Gutenberg fitted a sine-curve envelope to the early
residuals as shown in Figure 5. Gutenberg and Richter always performed this crucial step in such a manner as to
weigh the observations in terms of their position relative to
the epicenter, and in terms of their personal opinion about
the reliability of the station. Often an important station was
used to anchor the sine fit in such a way that other arrivals
would turn out having been late. Early observations were a
problem. When they belonged to an unreliable station they
were simply discarded.
Clearly, such a procedure would be difficultthough
not impossibleto program on a computer. On the other
hand, the number and quality of seismic observations have
improved considerably since Gutenbergs time. Fitting a sine
envelope to a set of points offers no major challenge.
Gutenbergs procedure was iterative. In order to obtain
the next trial epicenter E he would simply add the amplitude
and phase of the fitted sine curve to the latitude and longitude
of E. Then the residuals were recomputed for E and the
procedure would be repeated. The iteration procedure would
stop when the sine curve became a straight horizontal line.
The method might be adapted to interactive graphics.

Conclusion
Theorem (1) shows that the epicentral parameters k and
may be determined on the sphere without using travel
times or travel-time tables. This suggests a location method
that assumes only radial homogeneity and is free of any bias
introduced by travel-time measurements on the sphere. The
location can be made as accurate as desired. It could be
adopted as the gold standard for earthquake locations.
The focal depth remains indeterminate and must be determined separately. This is because all the measurements
are on the surface. In joint regression the errors in the focal
depth will contaminate the epicentral solution and vice versa.
Theorem (2) shows that the estimation of focal depth
from travel-time residuals is not unique, because the rays
that exit the focal sphere at the equator divide the surface of
the sphere in two regions. Residuals will have opposite effects on focal-depth estimation depending on which of these
two regions contains the observation. Since the areas of the
two regions are very unequal there is a strong bias in focaldepth estimation.
Theorem (3) is intended to show that epicentral location
is biased too, but in a different way. In a random field of
stations the number of observations increases as the sine of
the distance. This means that most samples are dominated
by distant observations. But at distant stations the frequency
content of the initial P wave becomes increasingly similar

Figure 5. Gutenbergs method of earthquake location. Station residuals, black dots; residuals at
good stations, used for constraining the epicentral
correction curve, open dots. After the final iteration
the correction curve should become a straight horizontal line.
to the frequency of the background noise. This means that
detection of early arrivals becomes increasingly difficult,
and residuals are increasingly positive. As stations tend to
cluster in certain areas, such as California or Europe, epicentral solutions tend to be pulled in the direction of these
areas.
These results are intended to illustrate the fact that the
location of earthquakes from observations on the Earths surface is an ill-posed problem. We do not know how to locate
earthquakes. Therefore we dont know the structure of the
earths interior either, as it is derived from the inversion of
travel-time tables obtained from earthquake locations. Some
scientists have been aware of this situation for years, and
have bravely attempted to restore well-posedness by inventing new ways of locating earthquakes, or by restricting the
class of admissible solutions using a priori information.
Unfortunately, the location problem is the fundamental
problem of seismology. If we do not know how to locate
earthquakes, we cannot be certain of our information on the
Earths interiornot so much because it matters whether
some earthquake is mislocated a few miles seaward or landward but because locations have been used since Zoeppritz
(1907) to estimate travel-time tables. Location errors creep
into travel-time tables and from there into models of Earth
structure. There does not seem to be any good way of preventing this, since we are dealing with the effects of bias.
Earthquakes are not homogeneously distributed in space and
neither are stations. Plate tectonics make sure that observations will be skewed by the position of the major continents.
This bias is systematically built into the travel-time tables.

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Short Notes

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Institute of Geophysics
UNAM
Mexico City, Mexico
Manuscript received 4 March 2005.