Spheroidal Oscillations in the Earth Excited by the Wenchuan Earthquake

Based on the digital observational data from pendulum tilt-meters and water tube tilt-meters, the spheroidal free oscillations of the Earth, excited by the M8.0 Wenchuan earthquake of May 12, 2008, were obtained using the method of power spectral density estimation without any calculation to erase solid tides. The result matches well with the PREM results. Compared to the theoretical free oscillation from the PREM model, all relative errors are concentrated on 0.1% except forS, whose relative error is greater than 0.3%. This research provides a new method to determine the spheroidal modes of Earth’s free oscillations from observations of the pendulum tilt-meter and water tube tilt-meter, which may be useful in the future study of the Earth’s free oscillations.