Rayleigh-Wave Dispersion Curves from Energetic Hurricanes in the Southeastern United States

Abstract

ABSTRACT Seismic records during energetic storms, similar to earthquake signals, carry information about the Earth’s interior. However, the utility of these records is rare in seismic imaging, because signal onsets in storm-generated microseisms are difficult to pick. The exciting seismic sources are also unsteady. Here, we present a new method for extracting accurate Rayleigh-wave dispersion curves from broadband seismic recordings made during the passage of hurricanes by incorporating Shen et al. (2012) cross-correlation strategy with Wang et al. (2019) frequency–Bessel transform array stacking technique. We show that surface-wave dispersion curves are observed in the seismic recordings made of four hurricanes. Compared with dispersion curves from hurricanes traveling onshore or in the deepwater, dispersion curves have higher signal-to-noise ratios from hurricanes moving near the coast or along the continental shelf. The average dispersion curve obtained from stacked cross correlations of all the four hurricanes agrees closely with that obtained from yearly ambient noise. We utilize the average dispersion curve from hurricanes to obtain a reliable shear-wave velocity (VS) model. Our VS model matches that derived from annual ambient seismic noise results with an average difference less than 0.1 km/s in the crust and uppermost mantle. This study suggests that hurricane-based dispersion curves can be an effective supplement to surface-wave tomography.