A New Dissimilarity Measure for Clustering Seismic Signals
Hypocenter and focal mechanism of an earthquake can be determined by the analysis of signals, named waveforms, related to the wave field produced and recorded by a seismic network. Assuming that waveform similarity implies the similarity of focal parameters, the analysis of those signals characterized by very similar shapes can be used to give important details about the physical phenomena which have generated an earthquake. Recent works have shown the effectiveness of cross-correlation and/or cross-spectral dissimilarities to identify clusters of seismic events. In this work we propose a new dissimilarity measure between seismic signals whose reliability has been tested on real seismic dat…
Integrated Geophysical Investigations at the Greek Kamarina Site (Southern Sicily, Italy)
Kamarina, located in southern Sicily (Italy), was an important Greek colony since its foundation in the sixth century BC. Archaeological excavations, carried out since the twentieth century, uncovered only limited portions of the site so far. Despite the importance of the Greek colony, the presence of remarkable buildings that archaeologists expected to bring to light has not found fully correspondence in the archaeological excavations. Consequently, the integrated geophysical prospection carried out in the study area is aimed to support and address the future archaeological investigations. After the photographic and thermographic survey obtained by an unmanned aerial vehicle, we performed …
Seismo-stratigraphic model of “La Bandita” area in the Palermo Plain (Sicily, Italy) through HVSR inversion constrained by stratigraphic data
Ambient noise Horizontal-to-Vertical Spectral Ratio (HVSR) technique is commonly used approach to obtain 1D models of the shear-wave velocity in the shallow surface of an investigated area. However, obtained models can have a wide margin of uncertainty if inversions have not been appropriately constrained by detailed stratigraphic information. An application of HVSR inversion constrained by lithostratigraphic data is presented in order to verify the effectiveness of this technique for purposes of geological and geophysical reconstruction of a sedimentary basin in a densely urbanized area. This is often the case of seismic microzonation studies, in which almost all the information derives fr…
A fast and efficient picking algorithm for earthquake early warning application based on the variance piecewise constant models
An earthquake warning system, or earthquake early warning system, is a system of accelerometers, seismometers, communication, computers, and alarms that is devised for notifying adjoining regions of a substantial earthquake while it is in progress. This is not the same as earthquake prediction, which is currently incapable of producing decisive event warnings. The implementation of efficient and computationally simple picking algorithm is necessary for this purpose, as well as automatic picking of seismic phases for seismic surveillance and routine earthquake location for fast hypocenter determination. In this paper a method for picking based on the detection of signals changes in variance …
Time-Frequency Filtering for Seismic Waves Clustering
This paper introduces a new technique for clustering seismic events based on processing, in time-frequency domain, the waveforms recorded by seismographs. The detection of clusters of waveforms is performed by a k-means like algorithm which analyzes, at each iteration, the time-frequency content of the signals in order to optimally remove the non discriminant components which should compromise the grouping of waveforms. This step is followed by the allocation and by the computation of the cluster centroids on the basis of the filtered signals. The effectiveness of the method is shown on a real dataset of seismic waveforms.
On the stationarity of the horizontal to vertical noise spectral ratio
The Horizontal to Vertical Noise Spectral Ratio (HVNSR) method is nowadays widely used to estimate the resonance frequencies of geological structures. In the HVNSR method, seismic noise is considered as a stationary stochastic process. However, especially in industrialized/urbanized area, this is a very strict assumption seldom occurred. Several sources of noise can generate non stationary and anisotropic microtremor fields. To investigate the stationarity of microtremor, we have carried out several long-term measures of seismic noise with broad-band seismic sensors, in areas where the main source of anthropogenic noise is well known. The signals acquired have been analyzed both in frequenc…
The INGV's new OBS/H: Analysis of the signals recorded at the Marsili submarine volcano
Abstract The ocean bottom seismometer with hydrophone deployed on the flat top of the Marsili submarine volcano (790 m deep) by the Gibilmanna OBS Lab (CNT–INGV) from 12th to 21st July, 2006, recorded more than 1000 transient seismic signals. Nineteen of these signals were associated with tectonic earthquakes: 1 teleseismic, 8 regional (located by INGV) and 10 small local seismic events (non located earthquakes). The regional events were used to determine sensor orientation. By comparing the signals recorded with typical volcanic seismic activity, we were able to group all the other signals into three categories: 817 volcano–tectonic type B (VT-B) events, 159 occurrences of high frequency t…
Integrated use of unmanned aerial vehicle photogrammetry and terrestrial laser scanning to support archaeological analysis: The Acropolis of Selinunte case (Sicily, Italy)
Southwestern Sicily is an area of infrequent seismic activity; however, some studies carried out in the archaeological Selinunte site suggest that, between the fourth century BC and the early Middle Ages, probably at least two earthquakes strucked this area with enough energy to damage and cause the collapse and kinematics of much of the architecture of Selinunte. Take into account that, in 2008, a noninvasive archaeological prospection and traditional data gathering methods along the Acropolis north fortifications were carried out. Following these first studies, after about 10 years, a new geophysical campaign was carried out. This second campaign benefited from the application of modern t…
Assessment of the Reliability of the SPAC Method in Urban Areas
We have carried out several long-term measures of seismic noise with triangular arrays of broad-band seismic sensors, to investigate the reliability of the SPAC method in urban areas. We investigate the stationary and anisotropy of the microtremor wave field. We have found that the anisotropy of the microtremor wave field can be evaluated analyzing the HVNSR as function the azimuth. Furthermore, we showed as strong anisotropies in the microtremors are often observable in particular at high frequencies (> 1 Hz). We have verified as microtremors can be difficult to considered as ergodic processes, and for this reason time averaging, also even over a long periods of time, cannot replace an app…