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The 12 February 2013 nuclear test conducted by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea stands out among other nuclear tests because it produced unusually large transversal motions. Previous studies found various percentages of isotropic components of the seismic moment tensor (MT), which opens up an important question about the reliability of the methods and assumptions we routinely use to recover the seismic MT in the point source approximation. Of particular interest is the data noise model that can be utilized to represent the uncertainty associated with the recorded data. If the noise is not accounted for, this may result in a range of unwanted effects such as overfitting waveform data, and, in turn, it may lead to erroneous conclusions. We thus scrutinize the analyses of the seismic MT of this explosion by performing a thorough analysis of the source depth and time utilizing newly developed Earth structure models to invert seismograms at regional distances at different frequency bands. In addition, we estimate the solution uncertainty within a hierarchical Bayesian framework that allows accounting for noise in the data. Our results show that the resulting MT of this event contains an expectedly large isotropic component (about 70%) and a dip-slip faulting.

Moment tensor (MT) inversion studies of events in The Geysers geothermal field mostly focused on microseismicity and found a large number of earthquakes with significant non‐double‐couple (non‐DC) seismic radiation. Here we concentrate on the largest events in the area in recent years using a hierarchical Bayesian MT inversion. Initially, we show that the non‐DC components of the MT can be reliably retrieved using regional waveform data from a small number of stations. Subsequently, we present results for a number of events and show that accounting for noise correlations can lead to retrieval of a lower isotropic (ISO) component and significantly different focal mechanisms. We compute the Bayesian evidence to compare solutions obtained with different assumptions of the noise covariance matrix. Although a diagonal covariance matrix produces a better waveform fit, inversions that account for noise correlations via an empirically estimated noise covariance matrix account for interdependences of data errors and are preferred from a Bayesian point of view. This implies that improper treatment of data noise in waveform inversions can result in fitting the noise and misinterpreting the non‐DC components. Finally, one of the analyzed events is characterized as predominantly DC, while the others still have significant non‐DC components, probably as a result of crack opening, which is a reasonable hypothesis for The Geysers geothermal field geological setting.

SUMMARY Seismic moment tensors are an important tool and input variable for many studies in the geosciences. The theory behind the determination of moment tensors is well established. They are routinely and (semi-) automatically calculated on a global scale. However, on regional and local scales, there are still several difficulties hampering the reliable retrieval of the full seismic moment tensor. In an earlier study, we showed that the waveform inversion for seismic moment tensors can benefit significantly when incorporating rotational ground motion in addition to the commonly used translational ground motion. In this study, we test, what is the best processing strategy with respect to the resolvability of the seismic moment tensor components: inverting three-component data with Green’s functions (GFs) based on a 3-D structural model, six-component data with GFs based on a 1-D model, or unleashing the full force of six-component data and GFs based on a 3-D model? As a reference case, we use the inversion based on three-component data and 1-D structure, which has been the most common practice in waveform inversion for moment tensors so far. Building on the same Bayesian approach as in our previous study, we invert synthetic waveforms for two test cases from the Korean Peninsula: one is the 2013 nuclear test of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the other is an Mw  5.4 tectonic event of 2016 in the Republic of Korea using waveform data recorded on stations in Korea, China and Japan. For the Korean Peninsula, a very detailed 3-D velocity model is available. We show that for the tectonic event both, the 3-D structural model and the rotational ground motion, contribute strongly to the improved resolution of the seismic moment tensor. The higher the frequencies used for inversion, the higher is the influence of rotational ground motions. This is an important effect to consider when inverting waveforms from smaller magnitude events. The explosive source benefits more from the 3-D structural model than from the rotational ground motion. Nevertheless, the rotational ground motion can help to better constraint the isotropic part of the source in the higher frequency range.

Following the 22 March 2020 ML 5.5 earthquake near Zagreb, Croatia, the citizens became increasingly interested in earthquakes and the multitude of simultaneous visitors caused the webpage with Croatian Seismological Survey reports on earthquakes to crash. To remedy the situation, seismologists used social network accounts to provide information, using the opportunity to educate the citizens on basic concepts of seismology, earthquake preparedness and the occurring seismic sequence. Citizens’ feedback was useful to improve the communication, but required extensive moderation. In July 2020, three seismologists from the Department of Geophysics, Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb, one from the Slovenian Environment Agency, and a psychologist from the Croatian Catholic University conducted a poll to find out which sources of information citizens mostly use, their knowledge about earthquakes, and the level of fear they were experiencing due to the earthquakes. Most respondents relied on institutional sources of information and their knowledge on different aspects of earthquake preparedness increased relatively compared to the time before the earthquake. The majority of respondents was extremely worried on the day of the mainshock, predominantly because they were concerned of a possible stronger event, their safety and the safety of their close ones.

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Today, social networks are an omnipresent method of human interaction and one of the most powerful tools to spread and gather information. Thus, when the ML5.5 earthquake struck Zagreb on