Observing the Microseism Source Regions from Space

Correlations of this ambient seismic signal between seismic stations has recently emerged as a powerful technique for tomography of the Earth's crust, allowing continuous global monitoring of the crust to seismogenic depths without relying on the occurrence of earthquakes. The technique has the potential for resolving changes in the crust during periods of little or no earthquake activity. Since ambient seismic noise is predominantly generated by ocean wave-wave interactions known to originate in narrowly defined geographical source areas that vary according to ocean swell state and season, it may be possible to derive physical constraints of the source characteristics by globallyly observing candidate source regions from space. At present, such observations have been confined to point measurements such as directional buoys and ocean-bottom seismometers. Using a technique formulated by Engen and Jonsen [1995], a 'field view' of the generating region can be obtained by deriving ocean directional spectra from Synthetic Aperature Radar (SAR) images by analysis of cross correlation of single-look SAR images. In November 2004, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's (JPL) air-borne SAR instrument, has collected data off the Alaska coast, while a large storm with wave heights of ~8m was pounding the coast. This was contemporaneous with the recording of strong microseismic activity by the Canadian National Seismic (CNSN). The AirSAR collected over a 100km long, 10km wide swath offshore, the region most likely to involve wave-wave interaction between the incoming swell and coast-reflected waves. JPL has implemented the cross correlation spectral technique, and applied it to the 2004 data-set. We will present results of the analysis of the SAR data in conjunction with analysis of the CNSN broadband seismic data.