← Back to Sessions

Impacts of Oceanographic and Geologic Factors on Ocean-Bottom Seismic Noise

Description: 

Seismic sensors have traditionally been largely restricted to on-land installations, yet the oceans cover roughly 70% of the Earth's surface. Coupled with heterogeneous distribution of seismic sources, limited seismic sensing in the oceans results in many regions being poorly sampled for Earth model development, and poorly monitored for detection of natural and anthropogenic seismic sources. Extending seismic measurements and observations into the oceans is an important future direction in seismology. The ambient noise level recorded by ocean-bottom seismometers (OBS) is in general much higher than the ambient noise levels on land, and details of the seafloor noise regime are not well described. To investigate the broadest regions for potential instrumentation, it is necessary to characterize the global seafloor seismic noise environment to aid in selection of sites for permanent sensors.

We present progress in evaluation of OBS noise characteristics at temporary network deployments distributed throughout the Earth's oceans. Many variables affect noise at the seafloor, including sensor type and instrument design, sensor orientation, instrument installation, ocean depth, geologic setting, and meteorological and oceanographic phenomena. We choose a single type of instrument in order to focus our analysis on noise variations due to oceanographic and geologic factors. Our long-term objective is to characterize source and path effects of seafloor noise across the globe by combining existing noise observations with predictions of noise from known sources, and to use this characterization to guide site selection and optimization of seafloor seismic array geometry.

Session: Advances in Marine Seismoacoustics [Poster]

Type: Poster

Date: 4/18/2023

Presentation Time: 08:00 AM (local time)

Presenting Author: Siobhan Niklasson

Student Presenter: Yes

Invited Presentation: 

Authors