Water Waves - Seismic Signals

Seismic Signals

Ocean water waves generate land seismic waves that propagate hundreds of kilometers into the land. These seismic signals usually have the period of 6 ± 2 seconds. Such recordings were first reported and understood in about 1900.

There are two types of seismic "ocean waves". The primary waves are generated in shallow waters by direct water wave-land interaction and have the same period as the water waves (10 to 16 seconds). The more powerful secondary waves are generated by the superposition of ocean waves of equal period traveling in opposite directions, thus generating standing gravity waves – with an associated pressure oscillation at half the period, which is not diminishing with depth. The theory for microseism generation by standing waves was provided by Michael Longuet-Higgins in 1950, after in 1941 Pierre Bernard suggested this relation with standing waves on the basis of observations.

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