This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
Dr. Moira Pyle is awarded an NSF Earth Science Postdoctoral Fellowship to carry out a program of research and education at Saint Louis University. This project seeks to improve our understanding of the generation of ambient seismic noise and to explore new methods of utilizing seismic noise to study the interior of the earth. Crosscorrelation of noise between two arrays of seismic stations will be performed and array analysis techniques will be employed to investigate what coherent energy exists. Data will come from the permanent arrays of the International Monitoring System as well as available temporary array deployments. Different seasons as well as years will be examined to study the seasonal and temporal differences in noise generation. Seismic remote sensing of the interior of the earth typically uses waves generated by earthquakes or man made sources such as explosions, however, a method using surface wave information contained in ambient seismic noise has recently been developed to examine Earth structure. Evidence that the noise also contains body wave energy that has interacted with the deep earth provides an opportunity to use noise to examine even more of the earth. The ability to use noise to study a wide range of the earth will allow for far better global coverage because it can help reduce the limitations of location and timing of earthquake occurrence. The proposed study will provide an opportunity for an undergraduate student to participate in a research project and explore interest in geophysics while developing research skills extremely useful for further study. The principal investigator will gain valuable mentoring experience working with undergraduates as well as sharing the methods and related work from the project by contributing lectures to graduate geophysics courses. Simplified explanations of the ideas behind the project and basic seismology will be presented to visiting school groups.
