Improving Ambient Noise Green's Functions

One of the most important tasks of earthquake seismology is to predict the intensity of shaking in large earthquakes. With that, engineers have the information needed to design earthquake-resistant structures, and policymakers have the information needed to develop effective mitigation and response strategies. To predict ground shaking from earthquakes accurately, we describe the full behavior of seismic wave propagation through the Earth using the Green’s function. Traditional seismological approaches rely on earthquake occurrence to understand the Earth’s interior, instead we use the ambient seismic field, often confused with ambient seismic noise, which carries enough information to extract the properties of interest. In line with providing accurate and stable estimates of ground intensity to structural engineers, we seek to unify our research effort to improve Green’s function accuracy with our colleagues in the Laboratoire de Géophysique Interne et de Tectonophysique de Grenoble. This project aims to nurture collaboration with Prof. Beroza, Prof. Lawrence, and their graduate students from the department of Geophysics of Stanford University with Physicist Stehly from LGIT, Grenoble.