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Sonification and Visualization of High-resolution Earthquake and Tremor Catalogs

Description: 

Recently, template matching and machine-learning methods have been applied to detect regular microearthquakes and low-frequency earthquakes in tectonically active regions, resulting in a significant increase in the number of events listed in these high-resolution catalogs. These catalogs can be used to delineate subtle fault structures and reveal hidden patterns in their space-time evolutions. In a 2D plot those events are projected along a certain fault plane or the distances with respect to a certain point are calculated. In some cases, a 2D-map view or 3D-projected animation is generated but without any sound effects. In this study, we explore the possibility of including sounds in the 2D or 3D animations of high-resolution catalogs. We shape the amplitude and frequency content of the sounds to represent earthquake magnitudes, depth and other spatial features. This allows us to take advantage of the human auditory pattern recognition system, unearthing patterns that can’t be intuited from visual animations. Our target regions are the Parkfield-Cholame section of the San Andreas Faults in Central California, where millions of low-frequency earthquakes have been detected since 2001, and the Noto Peninsula region in Western Japan, where an intensive earthquake swarm started near the end of 2020, and was followed by a magnitude 7.5 earthquake on Jan 1^st 2024. We plan to use these animations to demonstrate the unique spatial-temporal migrations of tremor and earthquake swarms in these regions. Updated results will be presented at the meeting.

Session: Visualization and Sonification in Solid Earth Geosciences, What’s Next? - I

Type: Oral

Date: 4/17/2025

Presentation Time: 11:30 AM (local time)

Presenting Author: Zhigang

Student Presenter: No

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