Seismic Noise

The goal of the Laser Interferometric Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) is to detect and study gravitational waves of astrophysical origin. Direct detection of gravitational waves holds the promise of testing general relativity in the strong-field regime, of providing a new probe of exotic objects such as black hole and neutron stars, and of uncovering unanticipated new astrophysics. LIGO, a joint Caltech-MIT project supported by the National Science Foundation, operates three multi-kilometer interferometers at two widely separated sites in the United States. These detectors are the result of decades of worldwide technology development, design, construction, and commissioning. They are now operating at their design sensitivity, and are sensitive to gravitational wave strains smaller than 1 part in 1E21. With this unprecedented sensitivity, the data are being analyzed to detect or place limits on gravitational waves from a variety of potential astrophysical sources.

The HVSR method applied to seismic noise can be a very useful technique to map the site effects of the territory, to identify the thickness
of the soft covering and so the depth of the seismic bedrock. The case of the urban area of Oliveri is presented. Because of its high seismic
hazard this area has been subject of first level seismic microzonation. The town lies on a large coastal plain made of mixed fluvial/marine
sediments, overlapping a deformed substrate. In order to identify points on the area probably suffering of relevant site effects and to define
a preliminary Vs subsurface model, 23 HVSR measurements were performed. A clustering technique of continuous signals has been used to
optimize the calculation of the HVSR curves and 42 reliable peaks, in the frequency range 0.1-20 Hz, have been identified. A second clustering
technique has been applied to the set of 42 vectors, containing coordinates, frequency and amplitude of each peak, to identify subsets
attributed to the same seismic discontinuities. Three main clusters have been identified. The two characterized by lower frequencies have
been considered in the HVSR data inversion, as stratigraphic peaks probably caused by the seismic bedrock. Finally, the morphology of the
top of the seismic bedrock has been mapped. The deepening of the seismic bedrock below the mouth of the Elicona Torrent suggests the possible
presence of a buried paleo-valley.

Ambient noise Horizontal-to-Vertical Spectral Ratio (HVSR) technique is commonly used approach to obtain 1D models of the shear-wave velocity in the shallow surface of an investigated area. However, obtained models can have a wide margin of uncertainty if inversions have not been appropriately constrained by detailed strati-graphic information. An application of HVSR inversion constrained by lithostrati-graphic data is presented in order to verify the effectiveness of this technique for purposes of geological and geophysical reconstruction of a sedimentary basin in a densely urbanized area. This is often the case of seismic microzonation studies, in which almost all the information derives from near surface stratigraphic drillings, since other geophysical methods are logistically difficult to carry out. In our work, we used stratigraphic constraints derived from 93 superficial boreholes whose depth rarely exceeds 30 m. In an area called "La Bandita", located in Palermo Plain (Sicily, Italy), a geophysical survey was performed by means of 55 microtrem-or recordings. Part of these was distributed randomly, while others very close to the available stratigraphic perforations. The reconstruction of the stratigraphy in the studied area has been obtained by a review of the main stratigraphic sequences and by a consequent stratigraphic three-dimensional modelling. HVSR curves have been interpreted taking care the thicknesses of the near surface successions derived by the stratigraphic 3-D model. The results , in terms of vertical profiles of the shear-wave velocity, have been interpolated to obtain a 3D seismic model. This has been used to extract basic information to identify and reconstruct the seismic bed-rock and the main geological boundaries that were not directly identifiable by means of only stratigraphic logs. It results that the bedrock is affected by a fault system that generated adjacent depressions where Quaternary successions deposited.

Seismology and geodesy are generally seen as the most reliable diagnostic tools for monitoring highly active or erupting volcanoes, like Mt. Etna. From the early 1980's, seismic activity was monitored at Mt. Etna by a permanent seismic network, progressively improved in the following years. This network has been considerably enhanced since 2005 by 24-bit digital stations equipped with broad-band (40 s) sensors. Today, thanks to a configuration of 33 broad-band and 12 short-period stations, we have a good coverage of the volcanic area as well as a high quality of the collected data. In the framework of the VULCAMED project a work-group of Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia has taken on the task of developing the seismic monitoring system , through the installation of other seismic stations. The choice of optimal sites must be clearly made through a careful analysis of the geometry of the existing seismic network. In this paper, we applied the Seismic Network Evaluation through Simulation in order to evaluate the performance of the Etna Seismic Network before and after the addition of the stations in the candidate sites. The main advantage of the adopted method is that we can evaluate the improvement of the network before the actual installation of the stations. Our analysis has permitted to identify some critical issues of the current permanent seismic network related to the lack of stations in the southern sector of the volcano, which is nevertheless affected by a number of seismogenic structures. We have showed that the addition of stations at the candidate sites would greatly extend the coverage of the network to the south by significantly reducing the errors in the hypocenter parameters estimation.

In the current work, we constructed new comprehensive standard seismic noise models and 3D temporal-spatial seismic noise level cubes for Morocco in northwest Africa to be used for seismological and engineering purposes. Indeed, the original global standard seismic noise models published by Peterson (1993) and their following updates by Astiz and Creager (1995), Ekström (2001) and Berger et al. (2003) had no contributing seismic stations deployed in North Africa. Consequently, this preliminary study was conducted to shed light on seismic noise levels specific to northwest Africa. For this purpose, 23 broadband seismic stations recently installed in different structural domains throughout Morocco are used to study the nature and characteristics of seismic noise and to create seismic noise models for Morocco. Continuous data recorded during 2009, 2010 and 2011 were processed and analysed to construct these new noise models and 3D noise levels from all stations. We compared the Peterson new high-noise model (NHNM) and low-noise model (NLNM) with the Moroccan high-noise model (MHNM) and low-noise model (MLNM). These new noise models are comparable to the United States Geological Survey (USGS) models in the short period band; however, in the period range 1.2 s to 1000 s for MLNM and 10 s to 1000 s for MHNM display significant variations. This variation is attributed to differences in the nature of seismic noise sources that dominate Morocco in these period bands. The results of this study have a new perception about permanent seismic noise models for this spectacular region and can be considered a significant contribution because it supplements the Peterson models and can also be used to site future permanent seismic stations in Morocco.

The goal of the Laser Interferometric Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) is to detect and study gravitational waves of astrophysical origin. Direct detection of gravitational waves holds the promise of testing general relativity in the strong-field regime, of providing a new probe of exotic objects such as black hole and neutron stars, and of uncovering unanticipated new astrophysics. LIGO, a joint Caltech-MIT project supported by the National Science Foundation, operates three multi-kilometer interferometers at two widely separated sites in the United States. These detectors are the result of decades of worldwide technology development, design, construction, and commissioning. They are now operating at their design sensitivity, and are sensitive to gravitational wave strains smaller than 1 part in 1E21. With this unprecedented sensitivity, the data are being analyzed to detect or place limits on gravitational waves from a variety of potential astrophysical sources.

The selection of the elementary analysis windows in continuous noise recordings for optimal estimation of the mean horizontal-to-vertical spectral ratio (HVSR) curve is generally performed by visual inspection of HVSR curves considered as functions of time. Starting from full-length records, HVSR curves are determined in consecutive time windows of appropriate lengths. Time windows with HVSR curves that are anomalous on the basis of a simple visual inspection are generally ignored in the computation of the average HVSR curve. It is often very difficult to optimize the selection of time windows to be used for the calculation of the HVSR curve representative of a site. The use of nonobjective selection criteria produces results which depend on personal opinions of the operator and for which reliability cannot be assessed with quantitative parameters. We implemented an automatic procedure, based on cluster analysis, for the determination of the optimal window subset for the computation of the average HVSR curve. The procedure is based on the application of the agglom-erative hierarchical clustering, using a measure of proximity of the standard correlation between HVSR curves and, as a rule for merging clusters, the average linking criterion. The procedure has been applied to 814 measures of seismic noise, carried out for the first-level microzonation of 20 municipalities of Eastern Sicily characterized by high seismic hazard. A critical comparison of the results obtained by the clustering procedure implemented with those previously obtained by processing the same recordings with a technique based on the visual comparison of the spectral ratios of all the analysis windows has shown that the automatic clustering procedure seems to be capable of achieving a better partitioning of a set of HVSR curves and thus provides effective help in the process of distinguishing between peaks mainly linked to the site effects and others mainly related to the source effects.

The selection of the elementary analysis windows in continuous noise recordings for optimal estimation of the mean horizontal‐to‐vertical spectral ratio (HVSR) curve is generally performed by visual inspection of HVSR curves considered as functions of time. Starting from full‐length records, HVSR curves are determined in consecutive time windows of appropriate lengths. Time windows with HVSR curves that are anomalous on the basis of a simple visual inspection are generally ignored in the computation of the average HVSR curve. It is often very difficult to optimize the selection of time windows to be used for the calculation of the HVSR curve representative of a site. The use of nonobjective selection criteria produces results which depend on personal opinions of the operator and for which reliability cannot be assessed with quantitative parameters. We implemented an automatic procedure, based on cluster analysis, for the determination of the optimal window subset for the computation of the average HVSR curve. The procedure is based on the application of the agglomerative hierarchical clustering, using a measure of proximity of the standard correlation between HVSR curves and, as a rule for merging clusters, the average linking criterion. The procedure has been applied to 814 measures of seismic noise, carried out for the first‐level microzonation of 20 municipalities of Eastern Sicily characterized by high seismic hazard. A critical comparison of the results obtained by the clustering procedure implemented with those previously obtained by processing the same recordings with a technique based on the visual comparison of the spectral ratios of all the analysis windows has shown that the automatic clustering procedure seems to be capable of achieving a better partitioning of a set of HVSR curves and thus provides effective help in the process of distinguishing between peaks mainly linked to the site effects and others mainly related to the source effects.

Romania is an earthquake prone area with a few destructive earthquakes per century. The National Institute for Earth Physics carries out the seismic survey of Romania through the Romanian National Seismic Network (RNSN) consisting of 65 real-time seismic stations. Daily reports and monthly bulletins are delivered after routinely analyzing and processing the recorded data. In the present paper we applied the Seismic Network Evaluation through Simulation method for the RNSN configuration as it was in August 2011 to estimate the background noise level, assess the appropriateness of the velocity model adopted in routine location procedure, evaluate the hypocenter location uncertainty and determine the detection magnitude threshold. Areas of greater (southern Romania) and lower (Carpathians and Apuseni Mountains) background noise within the RNSN are identified by mapping the average power of noise in 1-12 Hz frequency range. The statistical study of the P and S phases residual times allow us to assess the appropriateness of the velocity model used in routine location. Both P-and S-wave velocity models can be optimized to improve the quality of the hypocenter location. As shown by our analysis, the RNSN is able to detect and locate earthquakes with M L magnitude above 2.5 anywhere on the Romanian territory, except the border areas, such as the Crisana-Maramures seismic source zone. Merging data from both sides of the border significantly improves the quality of hypocenter location in these areas.

Recording microtremor data is increasingly used in determining the site effect on earthquake ground motion especially in regions of moderate to low earthquake activity. In this study we used microtremor data to evaluate the effect of shallow sedimentary layers on earthquake ground motion in Quseir city which is located in the Red Sea coast, Egypt. The increasing in urbanization and land use planning, and the constructions of tourist resorts in Quseir city are the motivation of this work. The microtremor data was recorded by single seismic stations and by array of seismic stations at number of sites at Quseir city. The single stations microtremor data was analyzed based on the horizontal-to-vertical (H/V) spectral ratio technique in order to get the fundamental site frequency (f0) and its associated amplitude of ground motion (A0). The raw data of array was analyzed by using the SPatial AutoCorrelation (SPAC) technique to infer the shear-wave velocity structure beneath Quseir city. The results demonstrate that the value of f0 is ranging between 0.56Hz and 2.5Hz. The retrieved shear-wave velocity profile is characterized by significant interfaces at depths 20m, 50m, and 80m corresponding to velocities 170, 240, and 365 m/s respectively. The resulted f0 values were used in the calculation of bedrock depth at the measured sites. The parameters obtained in this study show a good agreement with the geological setting of Quseir city.

The goal of the Laser Interferometric Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) is to detect and study gravitational waves of astrophysical origin. Direct detection of gravitational waves holds the promise of testing general relativity in the strong-field regime, of providing a new probe of exotic objects such as black hole and neutron stars, and of uncovering unanticipated new astrophysics. LIGO, a joint Caltech-MIT project supported by the National Science Foundation, operates three multi-kilometer interferometers at two widely separated sites in the United States. These detectors are the result of decades of worldwide technology development, design, construction, and commissioning. They are now operating at their design sensitivity, and are sensitive to gravitational wave strains smaller than 1 part in 1E21. With this unprecedented sensitivity, the data are being analyzed to detect or place limits on gravitational waves from a variety of potential astrophysical sources.

The goal of the Laser Interferometric Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) is to detect and study gravitational waves of astrophysical origin. Direct detection of gravitational waves holds the promise of testing general relativity in the strong-field regime, of providing a new probe of exotic objects such as black hole and neutron stars, and of uncovering unanticipated new astrophysics. LIGO, a joint Caltech-MIT project supported by the National Science Foundation, operates three multi-kilometer interferometers at two widely separated sites in the United States. These detectors are the result of decades of worldwide technology development, design, construction, and commissioning. They are now operating at their design sensitivity, and are sensitive to gravitational wave strains smaller than 1 part in 1E21. With this unprecedented sensitivity, the data are being analyzed to detect or place limits on gravitational waves from a variety of potential astrophysical sources.

The goal of the Laser Interferometric Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) is to detect and study gravitational waves of astrophysical origin. Direct detection of gravitational waves holds the promise of testing general relativity in the strong-field regime, of providing a new probe of exotic objects such as black hole and neutron stars, and of uncovering unanticipated new astrophysics. LIGO, a joint Caltech-MIT project supported by the National Science Foundation, operates three multi-kilometer interferometers at two widely separated sites in the United States. These detectors are the result of decades of worldwide technology development, design, construction, and commissioning. They are now operating at their design sensitivity, and are sensitive to gravitational wave strains smaller than 1 part in 1E21. With this unprecedented sensitivity, the data are being analyzed to detect or place limits on gravitational waves from a variety of potential astrophysical sources.

SUMMARY Probing seismic anisotropy of the lithosphere provides valuable clues on the fabric of rocks. We present a 3-D probabilistic model of shear wave velocity and radial anisotropy of the crust and uppermost mantle of Europe, focusing on the mountain belts of the Alps and Apennines. The model is built from Love and Rayleigh dispersion curves in the period range 5–149 s. Data are extracted from seismic ambient noise recorded at 1521 broad-band stations, including the AlpArray network. The dispersion curves are first combined in a linearized least squares inversion to obtain 2-D maps of group velocity at each period. Love and Rayleigh maps are then jointly inverted at depth for shear wave velocity and radial anisotropy using a Bayesian Monte Carlo scheme that accounts for the trade-off between radial anisotropy and horizontal layering. The isotropic part of our model is consistent with previous studies. However, our anisotropy maps differ from previous large scale studies that sugg...

RHUM-RUM is a German-French seismological experiment based on the sea floor surrounding the island of La Réunion, western Indian Ocean (Barruol and Sigloch, 2013). Its primary objective is to clarify the presence or absence of a mantle plume beneath the Reunion volcanic hotspot. RHUM-RUM's central component is a 13-month deployment (October 2012 to November 2013) of 57 broad-band ocean bottom seismometers (OBS) and hydrophones over an area of 2000 ⇥ 2000 km 2 surrounding the hotspot. The array contained 48 wideband OBS from the German DE-PAS pool and 9 broadband OBS from the French INSU pool. It is the largest deployment of DEPAS and INSU OBS so far, and the first joint experiment. This article reviews network performance and data quality: of the 57 stations, 46 and 53 yielded good seismome-ter and hydrophone recordings, respectively. The 19 751 total deployment days yielded 18 735 days of hydrophone recordings and 15 941 days of seismometer recordings, which are 94 and 80 % of the theoretically possible yields. The INSU seismic sensors stand away from their OBS frames, whereas the DEPAS sensors are integrated into their frames. At long periods (> 10 s), the DEPAS seismome-ters are affected by significantly stronger noise than the INSU seismometers. On the horizontal components, this can be explained by tilting of the frame and buoy assemblage, e.g. through the action of ocean-bottom currents, but in addition the DEPAS intruments are affected by significant self-noise at long periods, including on the vertical channels. By comparison, the INSU instruments are much quieter at periods > 30 s and hence better suited for long-period signals studies. The trade-off of the instrument design is that the integrated DEPAS setup is easier to deploy and recover, especially when large numbers of stations are involved. Additionally , the wideband sensor has only half the power consumption of the broadband INSU seismometers. For the first time, this article publishes response information of the DE-PAS instruments, which is necessary for any project where true ground displacement is of interest. The data will become publicly available at the end of 2017.

The goal of the Laser Interferometric Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) is to detect and study gravitational waves of astrophysical origin. Direct detection of gravitational waves holds the promise of testing general relativity in the strong-field regime, of providing a new probe of exotic objects such as black hole and neutron stars, and of uncovering unanticipated new astrophysics. LIGO, a joint Caltech-MIT project supported by the National Science Foundation, operates three multi-kilometer interferometers at two widely separated sites in the United States. These detectors are the result of decades of worldwide technology development, design, construction, and commissioning. They are now operating at their design sensitivity, and are sensitive to gravitational wave strains smaller than 1 part in 1E21. With this unprecedented sensitivity, the data are being analyzed to detect or place limits on gravitational waves from a variety of potential astrophysical sources.

We apply the Seismic Network Evaluation through Simulation (SNES) method to evaluate the performance of the Alaska Regional Seismic Network (ARSN) in locating regional earthquakes in terms of validity of the velocity models, hypocen-tral errors, and magnitude of completeness. We find that background noise levels at the sites are highest in the Aleutian region and lowest in mainland Alaska. We demonstrate that the ARSN provides the best monitoring in the south-central region, with horizontal and vertical errors of less than 1.5 and 3 km, respectively, at the completeness level of M L 2.0. At the completeness level of M L 3.0, the network is capable of locating earthquakes for the whole region down to depths of about 250 km with satisfactory errors. The lowest magnitude completeness levels, of about 1.4 and even less, are achieved with satisfactory location errors in limited areas of the south-central region that have the densest station coverage. The network does not monitor the seismogenic areas in northern, western, southeastern, and offshore Alaska at an adequate level in terms of earthquake location errors. Network upgrades in these areas could be optimized using the SNES results.