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Seasonal Freeze‐Thaw Cycles and Permafrost Degradation on Mt. Zugspitze (German/Austrian Alps) Revealed by Single‐Station Seismic Monitoring
Author(s) -
Lindner Fabian,
Wassermann Joachim,
Igel Heiner
Publication year - 2021
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 - 10.1029/2021gl094659
Subject(s) - permafrost , geology , terrain , seismic velocity , passive seismic , instrumentation (computer programming) , seismology , atmospheric sciences , physical geography , oceanography , ecology , geography , computer science , biology , operating system
Thawing of mountain permafrost in response to rising temperatures degrades the stability of rock walls and thereby affects infrastructure integrity in Alpine terrain. In this study, we use 15 yr of passive seismic data from a single station deployed near a known permafrost body on Mt. Zugspitze (Germany), to monitor freeze‐thaw processes. The recordings reveal a persistent cultural seismic noise source, which we utilize to compute single‐station cross‐correlations and extract relative seismic velocity changes. We find that parts of the cross‐correlations show seasonal velocity variations (≈3% peak‐to‐peak amplitude) and a long‐term velocity decrease (≈0.1%/yr). Comparison with meteorological data and a previous electrical resistivity tomography study suggests that these velocity changes are caused by freeze‐thaw cycles and by permafrost degradation, respectively. The results demonstrate the potential of passive seismology for permafrost monitoring and suggest that denser instrumentation will provide detailed spatio‐temporal insights on permafrost dynamics in future studies.