Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Earth’s upper crust seismically excited by infrasound from the 2022 Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha’apai eruption, Tonga

December 7, 2022

Records of pressure variations on seismographs were historically considered unwanted noise; however, increased deployments of collocated seismic and acoustic instrumentation have driven recent efforts to use this effect induced by both wind and anthropogenic explosions to invert for near‐surface Earth structure. These studies have been limited to shallow structure because the pressure signals have relatively short wavelengths (<∼300 m). However, the 2022 eruption of Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha’apai (also called “Hunga”) volcano in Tonga generated rare, globally observed, high‐amplitude infrasound signals with acoustic wavelengths of tens of kilometers. In this study, we examine the acoustic‐to‐seismic coupling generated by the Hunga eruption across 82 Global Seismographic Network (GSN) stations and show that ground motion amplitudes are related to upper (0 to ∼5 km) crust material properties. We find high (>0.8) correlations between pressure and vertical component ground motion at 83% of the stations, but only 30% of stations show this on the radial component, likely due to complex tilt effects. We use average elastic properties in the upper 5.2 km from the CRUST1.0 model to estimate vertical seismic/acoustic coupling coefficients (⁠SV/A">

Publication Year 2023
Title Earth’s upper crust seismically excited by infrasound from the 2022 Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha’apai eruption, Tonga
DOI 10.1785/0220220252
Authors Robert E. Anthony, Adam T. Ringler, Toshiro Tanimoto, Robin Matoza, Silvio De Angelis, David C. Wilson
Publication Type Article
Publication Subtype Journal Article
Series Title Seismological Research Letters
Index ID 70242068
Record Source USGS Publications Warehouse
USGS Organization Geologic Hazards Science Center
Was this page helpful?