Field observations of seismic velocity changes caused by shaking-induced damage and healing due to mesoscopic nonlinearity

Gassenmeier, Martina; Sens‐Schönfelder, Christoph; Eulenfeld, Tom; Bartsch, M.; Victor, Pia; Tilmann, Frederik; Korn, M.

doi:10.1093/gji/ggv529

Cited by 50 publications

(66 citation statements)

References 66 publications

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“…Thermoelastic effects have been observed to dominate seasonal velocity changes in arid regions (Gassenmeier et al, 2016;Hillers et al, 2015;Richter et al, 2014). In the greater Los Angeles basin, which contains the SGV, Meier et al (2010) were not able to distinguish between seasonal variations due to hydrological or thermoelastic effects.…”

Section: 1029/2018gl077706mentioning

confidence: 93%

Tracking Groundwater Levels Using the Ambient Seismic Field

Clements

Denolle

2018

Geophysical Research Letters

135

121

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Aquifers are vital groundwater reservoirs for residential, agricultural, and industrial activities worldwide. Tracking their state with high temporal and spatial resolution is critical for water resource management at the regional scale yet is rarely achieved from a single type of groundwater data.Here we show that variations in groundwater levels can be mapped using perturbations in seismic velocity (dv/v). We measure dv/v in the San Gabriel Valley, California, from cross correlation of the ambient seismic field. dv/v reproduces the groundwater level changes that are marked by the multiyear depletions and rapid recharges, typical of California's cycles of droughts and floods. dv/v correlates spatially with vertical surface displacements and deformation measured with the Global Positioning System (GPS). Our results successfully predict the volume of water lost in the San Gabriel Valley during the 2012-2016 drought and thus provide a new, complementary approach to monitor groundwater storage. Plain Language SummaryThe largest reservoir of freshwater worldwide is stored beneath our feet in groundwater aquifers. Monitoring the availability of water stored in the ground is critical for communities that are susceptible to drought, as groundwater can supplement a lack of surface fresh water. We propose a new way to monitor groundwater levels in aquifers using weak seismic waves repeatedly generated by the ocean, wind, and human activities. We exploit the fact that the speed of seismic waves is sensitive to the amount of the water in the ground. Using a network of seismometers, we measure the change in seismic velocity throughout the San Gabriel Valley Basin, California. We find that with the change in seismic velocity we can estimate the flux of water in the San Gabriel Valley over the last three droughts and subsequent recoveries that have affected Southern California over the last two decades. These results provide a new approach to monitor groundwater storage.

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Section: 1029/2018gl077706mentioning

confidence: 93%

Tracking Groundwater Levels Using the Ambient Seismic Field

Clements

Denolle

2018

Geophysical Research Letters

135

121

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“…Without necessarily interpreting the phases in the cross correlograms, one can also monitor the temporal evolution of the wave arrival times. AC and SC functions have been used to detect seismic velocity changes during earthquakes (Gassenmeier et al, 2016;Hobiger et al, 2012Hobiger et al, , 2014Hobiger et al, , 2016Richter et al, 2014;Wegler & Sens-Schönfelder, 2007) and volcanic eruptions (De Plaen et al, 2016). However, these studies focused on velocity changes of coda waves at relatively low frequencies (∼0.1 to 4 Hz), making the measurements sensitive to variations occurring within a few kilometers of depth.…”

Section: 1029/2018jb015697mentioning

confidence: 99%

Complex Near‐Surface Rheology Inferred From the Response of Greater Tokyo to Strong Ground Motions

et al. 2018

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Strong ground motion can induce dynamic strains large enough for the Earth's subsurface to respond nonlinearly and to cause permanent, or plastic, damage. The 2011 Mw 9.0 Tohoku‐Oki earthquake, Japan, generated exceptional and well‐recorded ground motions in the greater Tokyo area. We use continuous records from 234 stations of the dense MeSO‐net seismic network to monitor the temporal evolution of the material properties of the shallow subsurface (upper ∼100 m). We apply the single‐station cross‐correlation method to reconstruct the near‐surface reflectivity response through time. We find that the strong ground motions from the mainshock caused large perturbations in the near‐surface structure, with significant drops in seismic velocities up to 11%. For most sites, we observe a logarithmic and complete recovery of the seismic wave speed, suggesting a relaxation process that can be explained by a viscoelastic rheology. Some sites exhibit an instantaneous and permanent change, which suggests a plastic rheology. Finally, dense seismic measurements allow for statistical inference between seismic velocity drops, recovery time scales, and permanent perturbations and ground motion strength and site conditions. This study highlights the potential for seismic interferometry to assess near‐surface rheology with dense seismic arrays.

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“…In the past, most noise-based monitoring studies mainly focused on the changes in coseismic velocities (e.g., Chen et al, 2010;Takagi et al, 2012;Wegler et al, 2009;Wegler & Sens-Schönfelder, 2007;Yu & Hung, 2012;Zaccarelli et al, 2011). In recent years, we have seen a rapid increase in studies on the postseismic velocity changes or recovery of seismic velocity as a result of high-quality and long-term seismic observation (e.g., Gassenmeier et al, 2016;Hobiger et al, 2012Hobiger et al, , 2016Liu et al, 2014;Soldati et al, 2015;Taira et al, 2018;Ueno et al, 2012;Wu et al, 2016). Hobiger et al (2016) systematically studied the characteristics of seismic velocity recovery in different frequency bands of different earthquakes and found that the recovery time constant for all earthquakes was 0.55 years, wherein the coseismic velocity reduction is further divided into two sections: one is potential maximal recovery value, and the other is nonrecovery residual value, and the recovery time constant is defined as the time when the coseismic velocity drop recovers to a factor of 1/e of the maximal recovery value using an exponential fitting algorithm.…”

Section: Slow Postseismic Recovery: Slow Healing?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Ambient Noise Monitoring of Seismic Velocity Around the Longmenshan Fault Zone From 10 Years of Continuous Observation

Liu

Huang

et al. 2018

JGR Solid Earth

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We present 10‐year continuous seismic velocity changes from 2007 to 2017 around the Longmenshan fault zone, where the 2008 Mw 7.9 Wenchuan earthquake and the 2013 Mw 6.6 Lushan earthquake occurred. We collected continuous waveforms recorded by 20 broadband stations covering the entire Longmenshan fault zone and used three‐component ambient noise correlation techniques to measure the velocity changes in four different period bands. Our results show that a significant drop, 0.04–0.06%, occurred in the coseismic velocity at the time of the Wenchuan earthquake, near the rupture zone for the period bands of 1–3 and 3–8 s. In addition, only one fourth of the coseismic velocity drop has been recovered 9 years after the earthquake. We also observed a subtle velocity drop, 0.0066%, delayed by ~100 days relative to the time of the mainshock in the period bands of 6–15 s. In the source region of the Lushan earthquake, we detected a weak but reliable coseismic velocity change of ~0.01% in the period band of 1–3 s. The physical mechanism of the seismic velocity change could involve the damage in the shallow subsurface layer (<3 km), the damage in the fault zone at depth (~10 km), and the postseismic slip along the deep rupture zone up to ~20 km. The uncommonly slow postseismic velocity recovery indicates the slow healing of the Longmenshan fault zone after the Wenchuan earthquake, which may be associated with the low rate of stress loading onto the fault zone.

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Field observations of seismic velocity changes caused by shaking-induced damage and healing due to mesoscopic nonlinearity

Abstract: Korn, M. (2016): Field observations of seismic velocity changes caused by shaking-induced damage and healing due to mesoscopic nonlinearity.

Cited by 50 publications

References 66 publications

Tracking Groundwater Levels Using the Ambient Seismic Field

Tracking Groundwater Levels Using the Ambient Seismic Field

Complex Near‐Surface Rheology Inferred From the Response of Greater Tokyo to Strong Ground Motions

Ambient Noise Monitoring of Seismic Velocity Around the Longmenshan Fault Zone From 10 Years of Continuous Observation

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