Recent Developments in Environmental Seismology

Seismologists use elastic waves to probe and study the Earth’s interior. With the advent of more portable instrumentation and dense sensor coverage, recent attention has been directed to small scales near our planet’s surface. The resulting field of “environmental seismology” includes a particular focus on natural hazards and mass movements ranging from small rock falls to massive avalanches made up of snow, ice and/or rock. Local and regional seismic networks also capture seismic signatures of stable deformation including sliding and fracture signals accompanying glacier and landslide creep. With the help of passive interferometry, such data furthermore reveal structural changes of potentially unstable masses that may represent failure precursors.

Over the past 1-2 decades, numerous studies have revealed the usefulness of seismology in environmental studies. Consequently, seismic instrumentation is being introduced into monitoring infrastructure to improve warning capabilities and scientific research. This presentation discusses recent seismometer deployments and data mining approaches in environmental seismology. The focus is on Alpine terrain, where dense coverage of earthquake monitoring stations and other seismometers exist, which lends itself to environmental studies. Provided that specific challenges in sensor design and data processing are soon tackled, a range of pilot projects suggests that seismic techniques will soon be part of the next generation of operational monitoring and warning systems in Alpine terrain.