Single-Station Earthquake Location Algorithm

This document describes a single-station earthquake location program I developed. The core algorithm utilizes first arrival times and the time difference between P-wave and S-wave arrivals to compute the epicentral distance. By implementing seismic wave velocity models and travel-time calculations, the program determines the earthquake's location relative to the recording station. When station coordinates (latitude and longitude) are provided as input parameters, the system performs coordinate transformation to output the epicenter's geographical coordinates. To enhance the program's functionality, future development could incorporate additional features such as automated map plotting of epicenter locations using GIS libraries (e.g., Basemap or Cartopy in Python), and data export capabilities to save results in standard formats (CSV, JSON) for further analysis. Algorithm improvements could include implementing more sophisticated velocity models, adding error estimation methods, or incorporating machine learning techniques for higher precision. The computational efficiency could be optimized through parallel processing or GPU acceleration for real-time applications. This program has potential applications in earthquake early warning systems and seismic monitoring networks, contributing to public safety and disaster prevention efforts. The modular code structure allows for easy integration with existing seismic data processing pipelines.