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In this study the attenuation mechanism of seismic wave energy in north central Italy is estimated using low-magnitude earthquake local data recorded at six stations managed by INGV. Most of the analysed events are located along the Alpine chain in the zone of Iseo and Garda lakes, while a minor part in the Po valley. The zone investigated is characterized by the occurrence of significantly intense earthquakes (magnitude up to 6.6) the most recent occurred in 2004 close to the city of Salò on the coast of the Garda lake ( M= 5.0). Due to the high population density and presence of industrial activity the investigated area is characterized by a high seismic risk. First, the ordinary Multiple Lapse Time Window Analysis (MLTWA) method is applied in the assumption of uniform velocity and scattering and the couple of B, the seismic albedo and , the extinction length inverse (corresponding to the total attenuation coefficient) is calculated in the frequency bands of 1.5, 3, 6 and 12 Hz. To retrieve more realistic estimates, the obtained values of and are corrected taking into account the effects of a depth-dependent earth model, consisting of an earth structure characterized by a transparent upper mantle and a heterogeneous crust. We find that the corrected intrinsic and scattering attenuation parameters (which are proportional to the inverse of the intrinsic/scattering quality factors, and ) are strongly frequency dependent, with a prevalence of scattering attenuation over the intrinsic dissipation. The corrected and uncorrected values of total Q are in agreement with the total Q values obtained with different approaches for the same area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Waveforms emerging from correlations of long seismic noise records are extensively used to investigate the crustal and upper-mantle structure of the Earth. To remove the non-stationary events that inevitably lie in seismic records, the so-called one-bit normalization is commonly applied to the noise data. This processing consists of replacing each sample of a record by its sign. Although it is a strong non-linear operation, it preserves the phase of the signal emerging from correlation. Some recent studies show that information can also be extracted from the amplitude of such correlations. In this paper, we develop a theory to understand these non-intuitive results. A statistical approach is used to get an expression of the one-bit noise correlation. This expression involves the standard deviations of coherent and incoherent noise. These two kinds of noise are precisely defined, and explicit expressions of their standard deviations are given in the case of a uniform distribution of noise sources generating surface waves on a layered half-space. In this case, we show that the one-bit noise correlation has the same phase and relative amplitude as the raw noise correlation. This is true in both elastic and anelastic media. Numerical simulations are performed to support our theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]