Detecting events in the urban seismic wavefield using a novel nodal
array in Singapore: earthquakes, blasts and thunder quakes
Abstract
Receiver density is key to being able to detect and characterise seismic
events at the noise level. This is particularly important in urban
environments where high cultural noise levels can obscure seismic event
signals at a single station. Here we catalogue the seismicity and
describe the basic data features of a dense nodal array that was
deployed in the city state of Singapore for a 1 month period in 2019. We
utilise array methods to detect and characterise seismic events, the
first based on waveform similarity (Li et al 2018) and the second
(presented here) on spectral energy. Distant earthquakes are easily
detected using the waveform similarity method, but local events are more
difficult to detect in this way. We therefore develop a spectrogram
stacking approach that highlights the location of anomalous coherent
spectral energy. Overall, we identify 76 distant earthquakes and 35
local events. Out of the local events, 22 are determined to be from
blasting works, while 13 remain from an origin that we cannot yet
determine. We also find that lightning produces a plentiful supply of
natural seismic sources through the conversion of acoustic waves
propagating through the atmosphere (thunder), to seismic waves. We
record hundreds of thunder quakes with a high signal to noise ratio and
over a wide frequency range. We suggest that a tropical region such as
Singapore has high potential to further advance thunder-quake studies.