ALBERT

Description: Prattes et al. (2011) report ULF magnetic anomalous signals claiming them to be possibly precursor of the 6 April 2009 MW6.3 L’Aquila earthquake. This comment casts doubts on the possibility that the observed magnetic signatures could have a seismogenic origin by showing that these pre-earthquake signals are actually part of normal global geomagnetic activity.

Description: Published

Description: 1717–1719

Description: 2.6. TTC - Laboratorio di gravimetria, magnetismo ed elettromagnetismo in aree attive

Description: JCR Journal

Description: open

Description: n/a

Description: Published

Description: 125-127

Description: 3.3. Geodinamica e struttura dell'interno della Terra

Description: restricted

Description: Hirano and Hattori (2011), hereafter cited as H&H, report the observation of anomalous increases in the ULF geomagnetic field spectral density ratio which the authors claim to be possible precursors of the 2008 Iwate–Miyagi Nairiku earthquake. Here the results of H&H are reviewed taking into account the global geomagnetic activity level by means ofPKp index. This paper cast serious doubts on the seismogenic origin of the magnetic signatures documented by H&H showing that the anomalous signals are normal ULF magnetic variations induced by solar–terrestrial interaction. In summary, H&H’s claims that magnetic field disturbances about a month before the Mw 6.9 Iwate–Miyagi Nairiku earthquake on June 13, 2008 are precursors to the earthquake are unlikely to be correct.

Description: Published

Description: 258-262

Description: 2.6. TTC - Laboratorio di gravimetria, magnetismo ed elettromagnetismo in aree attive

Description: JCR Journal

Description: restricted

Description: This paper reports the analyses of ULF (Ultra-Low-Frequency) geomagnetic field observations coming from the Geomagnetic Observatory of L'Aquila during the period 2008–2009. This period includes the L'Aquila 2009 seismic sequence, where the main shock of 6 April heavily damaged the medieval centre of the town and its surrounding area, causing 308 deaths, more than 1000 injuries and about 60,000 displaced people. Recently, several publications have documented the observation of precursory signals which occurred before the 6 April earthquake (e.g. Eftaxias et al., 2009, 2010), while others do not find any pre-earthquake anomaly (e.g. Villante et al., 2010; Di Lorenzo et al., 2011). In light of this, the goal of this study is to carry out further retrospective investigations. ULF magnetic field data are investigated by means of conventional analyses of magnetic polarization ratio, improved magnetic polarization ratio, and fractal analysis. In addition, total geomagnetic field data coming from the INGV Central Italy tectonomagnetic network have also been investigated, using the simple inter-station differentiation method. Within the limits of these methods, no magnetic anomalous signal which may be reasonably characterized as a precursor of the L'Aquila earthquakes has been found.

Description: Published

Description: 310–317

Description: 2.6. TTC - Laboratorio di gravimetria, magnetismo ed elettromagnetismo in aree attive

Description: JCR Journal

Description: restricted

Description: USEMS and GLASS are two projects financed by the European Research Council (ERC) as part of the ERC starting grants scheme within the FP7 framework. The rationale behind the funding scheme is to support some of the most promising scientific endeavours in Europe that are being led by young researchers, and to emphasize the excellence of individual ideas rather than specific research areas; in other words, to promote bottom-up frontier research. The general benefits of this rationale are evident in the two ongoing projects that deal with earthquake physics, as these projects are increasingly recognized in their scientific community. We can say that putting excellence at the heart of European Research strongly contributes to the construction of a European knowledge-based society. From a researcher point-of-view one of the most challenging aspects of these projects is to approach and convey the results of the projects to a general public, contributing actually to the construction of knowledge-based society. Luckily, media interest and the availability of a number of new communication tools facilitate the outreach of scientific achievements. The largest earthquakes during the last ten years (e.g. Sumatra 2004 and Japan 2011) have received widespread attention in the media world (TV, W.W.W., Newspaper and so on) for months, and successful research projects such as those above also become media protagonists, gaining their space in the media bullring. The USEMS principal investigator and his team have participated in several dissemination events in the Mass Media, such as interviews wit Italian and French TV national broadcasts (RAI Due TG2, RAI Uno Unomattina, Rai Tre Geo & Geo, FRANCE 2); interviews in scientific journals: SCIENCE (Sept. 2010), newspapers and web (Corriere della Sera, Il Gazzettino, Il Messagero, La Stampa, Libero, Il Mattino, Yahoo, ANSA, AdnKronos and AGI); radio (RadioRai Uno, RadioRai Tre Scienza); documentary “Die Eroberung der Alpen” produced by Tangram Film (Munchen, Germany). The USEMS project started in June 2008, and the GLASS project in October 2010. For both projects we developed a number of web pages through the official web site of the host institution, the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV) in Rome. In these pages we describe the projects, publish pictures and short-movies of the experimental activities and keep the project results up to date. In addition the research teams collaborate within various INGV outreach schemes (school and student visits in the laboratory, writing short news reports for the INGV press office, and interviews with journalists) as well as using WWW channels (Facebook, Youtube) to make the project results available to the general public. Finally, it is notable that the ERC funding agency itself is fully involved in the outreach activities using its own communication channels and its highly skilled resources which promote through brochures, web pages, publications and documentaries the best projects. We are going to improve our effort in this direction up to the end of the projects.

Description: Unpublished

Description: San Francisco

Description: 5.9. Formazione e informazione

Description: open

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 1994

Description: Ambient noise in the sea has been observed for over 100 years. Previous studies conclude that the primary source of microseisms is nonlinear interaction of surface gravity waves at the sea surface. Though this source relationship is generally accepted, the actual processes by which the wave generated acoustic noise in the water column couples and propagates to and along the sea floor are not well understood. In this thesis, the sources and propagation of sea floor and sub-sea floor microseismic noise between 0.2 and 10 Hz are investigated. This thesis involves a combination of theoretical, observational and numerical analysis to probe the nature of the microseismic field in the Blake Bahama Basin. Surface waves are the primary mechanism for noise propagation in the crust and fall into two separate groups depending on the relative wavelength/water depth ratio. Asymptotic analysis of the Sommerfeld integral in the complex ray parameter plane shows results that agree with previous findings by Strick (1959) and reveal two fundamental interface wave modes for short wavelength noise propagation in the crust: the Stoneley and pseudo-Rayleigh wave. For ocean sediments, where the shear wave velocity is less than the acoustic wave velocity of water, only the Stoneley interface wave can exist. For well consolidated sediments and basalt, the shear velocity exceeds the acoustic wave velocity of water and the pseudo-Rayleigh wave can also exist. Both interface waves propagate with retrograde elliptic motion at the sea floor and attenuate with depth into the crust, however the pseudo-Rayleigh wave travels along the interface with dispersion and attenuation and "leaks" energy into the water column for a half-space ocean over elastic crust model. For finite depth ocean models, the pseudo-Rayleigh wave is no longer leaky and approaches the Rayleigh wave velocity of the crust. The analysis shows that longer wavelength noise propagates as Rayleigh and Stoneley modes of the ocean+crust waveguide. These long wavelength modes are the fundamental mechanism for long range noise propagation. During the Low Frequency Acoustic Seismic Experiment (LFASE) a four-node, 12- channel borehole array (SEABASS) was deployed in the Blake Bahama Basin off the coast of eastern Florida (DSDP Hole 534B). This experiment is unique and is the first use of a borehole array to measure microseismic noise below the sea floor. Ambient background noise from a one week period is compared between an Ocean Bottom Seismometer (OBS) and SEABASS at sub-bottom depths of 10, 40, 70 and 100 meters below the sea floor. The 0.3 H z microseism peak is found to be nearly invariant with depth and has a power level of 65 and 75 dB rel 1 (nm/ s2)2)/ H z for the vertical and horizontal components respectively. At 100 m depth, the mean microseismic noise levels above 0.7 Hz are 10 dB and 15-20 dB quieter for the vertical and horizontal components respectively. Most of this attenuation occurs in the upper 10 m above 1.0 Hz, however higher modes in the spectra show narrow bandwidth variability in the noise field that is not monotonic with depth. Dispersion calculations show normal mode Stoneley waves below 0.7 Hz and evidence of higher modes above 0.8 Hz. A strong correlation between noise levels in the borehole and local sea state conditions is observed along with clear observation of the nonlinear frequency doubling effect between ocean surface waves and microseisms. Particle motion analysis further verifies that noise propagates through the array as Rayleigh/Stoneley waves. Polarization direction indicates at least two sources; distant westerly swell during quiescent times and local surface waves due to a passing storm. Above 1.0 Hz the LFASE data shows little coherence and displays random polarization. Because of this, we believe scattered energy is a significant component of the noise field in the Blake Bahama Basin. A fully 3-D finite difference algorithm is used to model both surface and volume heterogeneities in the ocean crust. Numerical modeling of wave propagation for hard and soft bottom environments shows that heterogeneities on the order of a seismic wavelength radiate energy into the water column and convert acoustic waves in the water into small wavelength Stoneley waves observed at the borehole. Sea floor roughness is the most important elastic scattering feature of the ocean crust. Comparisons of 2D and 3D rough sea floor models show that out-of-plane effects necessitate the use of 3D methods. The out-of-plane energy that is present in the LFASE data comes from either heterogeneities in the source field (i.e. mixed gravity wave directions) or, equally likely, scattering of the source field from surface or volume heterogeneities in the sea floor.

Description: This research was supported by Office of Naval Research grants N00014-89-C-0018, N00014-89-J-1012, N00014-90-C-0098, N00014-90-J-1493 and N00014-93-1-1352.