• journal_title：The Leading Edge
• Contributor：Barbara Luke ; Wanda Taylor ; Carlos Calderón-Macías ; Xiaohui Jin ; Helena Murvosh ; Jeff Wagoner
• Publisher：Society of Exploration Geophysicists
• Date：2008-
• Format：text/html
• Language：en
• Identifier：10.1190/1.3011027
• journal_abbrev：The Leading Edge
• issn：1070-485X
• volume：27
• issue：11
• firstpage：1544
• section：Special section: Near-surface geophysics

Shallow seismics are in demand today in tectonically active regions to characterize and classify sites for earthquake response studies. The surface-based seismic methods are the most widely used for this purpose. In developed areas, the passive-source methods, also known as microtremor methods, are popular because of their efficiency and because the available frequency content is appropriate to determine an average shear-wave velocity for the upper 30 m. This information is required by the International Building Code, which is used by many municipalities in the US and elsewhere.