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A repeating secondary source of infrasound from the Wells, Nevada, earthquake sequence
Author(s) -
Arrowsmith Stephen J.,
Burlacu Relu,
Whitaker Rod,
Randall George
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2009gl038363
Subject(s) - infrasound , seismology , geology , aftershock , acoustics , physics
The Wells, Nevada, earthquake of February 21, 2008, generated a complex seismo‐acoustic wavefield. Epicentral infrasound was recorded at 5 seismo‐acoustic arrays in Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming. In addition to epicentral infrasound, the earthquake triggered a secondary source of infrasound at the BGU array in Utah, which was also triggered by subsequent aftershocks. By applying simple constraints on the propagation of seismic and infrasound waves, we show that the secondary source is an isolated peak (‘Floating Island’) that appears to efficiently generate infrasound through the interaction with seismic surface waves. This hypothesized source location is broadly consistent with crosswind directions extracted from the Ground‐to‐Space (G2S) atmospheric model (for the appropriate time and source/receiver locations), although modeling the propagation of infrasound predicts this source location to be within the so‐called ‘zone‐of‐silence’. In contrast to epicentral infrasound, secondary infrasound associated with the Wells, Nevada, earthquake sequence appears to be local to each array (i.e., not observed at multiple arrays). Secondary infrasonic arrivals observed at BGU are much higher in amplitude than epicentral arrivals, highlighting the importance of being able to clearly identify and separate epicentral and secondary arrivals for infrasonic event discrimination.