The faulting mechanism can sometimes be inferred from a single seismogram by interpreting the amplitude and waveforms of all the recorded waves, since each wave type is affected by the radiation pattern of the earthquake differently. Better if you have a 3-components of ground motion recorded, and best if you have multiple recordings covering a range of azimuths. There is a very large and continuously growing literature on source-waveform inversion -- check out especially papers by Langston on body wave source inversion, Dziewonski on normal mode source inversion (routinely used by USGS), and recent work by Shearer and others imaging the rupture of large earthquakes (e.g., Sumatra, Tohuku) from network recordings.

It's hard to answer any of this questions with a single record (is that your question?). But you could tell the difference between a shallow and a deep-focus earthquake by the presence or absence of surface waves, even on a single station.

@Prof. Vernon: I would certainly go through your suggestions

thank you professor

@Max: Yeah that was my question... actually I am a civil engineering back ground... so I have poor knowledge on seismology/geophysics/geology

plenty of questions are getting into my mind related to these areas... so would like to know are there answers to my questions or my questions itself are wrong :D

it would certainly help me if I obtain some knowledge on these, specially seismology. So looking for a platform where I could find people to help me out, with pre-requisites or basics of these subjects/courses

anyways thank you Max, for your answer, I ll try to figure it out :)

You're welcome. Another thing I thought of is that if you can identify the P and S arrivals, the time delay between them can tell you how far away the hypocenter is.

i would like to know how do we find P-wave and s-wave arrivals in record

is there any method... used to hear some wave forms...

is that what we do to find p and s waves? and time difference between them and then the depth of hypocenter?

think this is seismology part... i need to know it to use it in my study... how do we calculate it?

Dear Jagan, There are many softwares like SEISAN are available which can have facility of P phase picking etc. But I still feel manual picking of the phase is the best. Because you are from Civil background, it will be little difficult for you. But in your city CSIR-NGRI is situated. Sometime visit their and you will get all the answers.

Read onset times for P and S waves. Find S-P tme difference.

then Approx. Origion Time will be P time - 1.38 (S-P) time