“…The finite volume element (FVE) method, the finite element (FE) method, the finite difference (FD) scheme, and the spectral method are deemed as four most common means to solve the viscoelastic wave equations(see, e.g., ), but comparison with the FD scheme, the FE method, and the FVE method, the spectral method has higher accuracy since it employs the whole smooth functions (e.g., Jacobi's, Legendre's, and Chebyshev's polynomials, and trigonometric functions) to approximate unknown functions, while the FE and FVE methods generally employ normal polynomials to approximate unknown functions and the FD scheme employs difference quotient to approximate differential quotient. In particular, the classical Crank–Nicolson collocation spectral (CNCS) method of the 2D viscoelastic wave equations can attain the super‐convergence about spatial variables .…”