Terrestrial resonant oscillations during the 11 April 2012 Sumatra
doublet earthquake
Abstract
The Earth’s background free oscillations at ~3.7 mHz and
~4.4 mHz resonantly couple with the atmospheric acoustic
modes and thus energy cross-talk between the earth-atmosphere system is
maximum at these frequencies. The present study proposes resonant
coupling between the Earth’s surface and atmosphere during the 11 April
2012 Sumatra doublet earthquake and offer a possible explanation to this
occurrence. Following both these earthquakes, prolonged ionospheric
oscillations centred at frequency of ~4 mHz were
observed in GPS (Global Positioning System) derived total electron
content (TEC) towards north-northeast of the epicenters. We scrutinize
these oscillations in terms of the manifestations of plausible
non-tectonic and tectonic forcing mechanisms surrounding the epicentral
region. Non-tectonic forcing such as the geomagnetic field coupling
factor and observation geometry play a critical role in determining the
amplitude anisotropy of resonant ionospheric signatures. Further, the
Rayleigh waves of the first earthquake (Mw 8.6) were already
characterized by an excess of energy at ~4 mHz. We
propose this could make the Mw 8.6 earthquake particularly efficient to
excite the 4 mHz resonance in the atmosphere. The resonant ionospheric
signatures after the second earthquake (Mw 8.2) were observed to be
closely associated with the Earth’s free oscillations caused by R2
Rayleigh wave train of the Mw 8.6 earthquake event .Together, all the
above point to a scenario where the resonant ionospheric signatures
during the Sumatra doublet event were indeed related to the seismic
source. Therefore, the resonant co-seismic ionospheric signatures could
provide additional information on the low-frequency features of seismic
ruptures.