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Figure 1. Shear-wave polarization and splitting in a fractured material. As an S-wave with an arbitrary polarization direction enters an anisotropic material, the wave splits into S1 and S2 components with different polarizations and different velocities. The wave polarized parallel to the fractures travels faster and is less attenuated that the wave polarized perpendicular to the fractures. After the S-waves emerge from the anisotropic material, they continue to propagate as two S-waves with different polarization directions.