Exotic Sources

Seismometers and microphones record many phenomena in addition to earthquakes, including volcanic eruptions, landslides, glacial calving events, microseisms generated by storm-driven ocean waves, tremor on deep faults, etc. While "exotic" to an earthquake seismologist, detection and analysis of these signals provides a wealth of information relevant to many different fields.

Relevant papers with contributions from my group include:

  1. Fan, W., J. J. McGuire, and P. M. Shearer, Abundant spontaneous and dynamically triggered submarine landslides in the Gulf of Mexico, Geophys. Res. Lett., 47, doi: 10.1029/2020GL087213, 2020.
  2. Matoza, R. S., D. N. Green, A. Le Pichon, P. M. Shearer, D. Fee, P. Mialle, and L. Ceranna, Automated detection and cataloging of global explosive volcanism using the International Monitoring System infrasound network, J. Geophys. Res., 122, 2946-2971, doi: 0.1002/2016JB013356, 2017. (PDF)
  3. Matoza, R. S., B. A. Chout, P. B. Dawson, P. M. Shearer, M. M. Haney, G. P. Waite, S. P. Moran, T. D. Mikesell, Source mechanism of small long-period events at Mount St. Helens in July 2005 using template matching, phase-weighted stacking, and full-waveform inversion, J. Geophys. Res., 120, 6351-6364, doi: 10.1002/2015JB012279, 2015. (PDF)
  4. Traer, J., P. Gerstoft, P. D. Bromirski, and P. M. Shearer, Microseisms and hum from ocean surface gravity waves, J. Geophys. Res., 117, B11307, doi: 10.1029/2012JB009550, 2012. (PDF)
  5. Chen, X., P. M. Shearer, F. Walter, and H. A. Fricker, Seventeen Antarctic seismic events detected by global surface waves and a possible link to calving events from satellite images, J. Geophys. Res., 116, doi: 10.1029/2011JB008262, 2011. (PDF)
  6. Zhang, J., P. Gerstoft, P. M. Shearer, H. Yao, J. E. Vidale, H. Houston, and A. Ghosh, Cascadia tremor spectra: low corner frequencies and earthquake-like high-frequency falloff, Geochem. Geophys. Geosys., 12, doi: 10.1029/2011GC003759, 2011. (PDF)
  7. Zhang, J., P. Gerstoft and P. M. Shearer, Resolving P-wave travel-time anomalies using seismic array observations of oceanic storms, Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., 292, 419-427, doi: 10.1016/j.epsl.2010.02.014, 2010.
  8. Zhang, J., P. Gerstoft, and P. M. Shearer, High-frequency P-wave seismic noise driven by ocean winds, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, doi: 1029/2009GL037761, 2009. (PDF)
  9. Gerstoft, P., P. M. Shearer, N. Harmon, and J. Zhang, Global P, PP, and PKP wave microseisms observed from distant storms, Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, doi: 100.1029/2008GL036111, 2008. (PDF)
  10. Cochran, E.S., and P.M. Shearer, Infrasound events detected with the Southern California Seismic Network, Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L19803, doi:10.1029/2006GL026951, 2006. (PDF)
  11. Shearer, P.M., Global seismic event detection using a matched filter on long-period seismograms, J. Geophys. Res., 99, 13,713-13,725, 1994. (PDF)