Solving a Seismic Mystery With the Audio From a Diver's Camera: A Case of Shallow Water T‐Waves in the Persian Gulf

Abstract

Sparse offshore coverage of seismic networks has hindered detailed studies of submarine earthquakes and their associated seismic hazard. We present results of our analysis of a diver's recording of acoustic signals from an ML = 5.6 earthquake in the Persian Gulf. We model the signals as a set of several shallow water T phases the frequency and group velocity of which are determined by bathymetry. We show that the audio track from this recording can provide reliable estimates of earthquake location and seismic moment. We also show that the reported shaking in the southern Persian Gulf, >170 km from the source of this small earthquake could result from T waves traveling through the entire width of the basin. Our results point to rudimentary and affordable underwater microphones similar to those used in the divers' cameras as tools to build efficient, low‐cost networks for the study of offshore events and early warning.

Assessing the Earthquake Recording Capability of an Ocean-bottom Distributed Acoustic Sensing Array in the Sanriku region, Japan

“…As a result, many submarine regions of the Earth are critically under-sampled and poorly studied. In addition, the lack of instrumentation in active subduction zones where large earthquakes and tsunamis can occur has often left coastal populations exposed, without a sufficient number of accurate real-time Early Warning systems (EEW; Allen & Melgar, 2019;Chung et al, 2020;Salaree, Spica, & Huang, 2023).…”