Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

HYPOELLIPSE; a computer program for determining local earthquake hypocentral parameters, magnitude, and first-motion pattern

August 1, 1999

This report provides Fortran source code and program manuals for HYPOELLIPSE, a computer program for determining hypocenters and magnitudes of near regional earthquakes and the ellipsoids that enclose the 68-percent confidence volumes of the computed hypocenters. HYPOELLIPSE was developed to meet the needs of U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) scientists studying crustal and sub-crustal earthquakes recorded by a sparse regional seismograph network. The program was extended to locate hypocenters of volcanic earthquakes recorded by seismographs distributed on and around the volcanic edifice, at elevations above and below the hypocenter. HYPOELLIPSE was used to locate events recorded by the USGS southern Alaska seismograph network from October 1971 to the early 1990s. Both UNIX and PC/DOS versions of the source code of the program are provided along with sample runs.

Publication Year 1999
Title HYPOELLIPSE; a computer program for determining local earthquake hypocentral parameters, magnitude, and first-motion pattern
DOI 10.3133/ofr9923
Authors John C. Lahr
Publication Type Report
Publication Subtype USGS Numbered Series
Series Title Open-File Report
Series Number 99-23
Index ID ofr9923
Record Source USGS Publications Warehouse
USGS Organization Earthquake Science Center; Menlo Park Science Center