New Acoustic Methods for Better Offshore Earthquake and Tsunami Hazard Assessment
By: Stephen Greenwell
An assistant professor at the Cullen College of Engineering has received a $690,000 grant to explore a new method to measure seafloor motion, an important component when it comes to assessing offshore earthquake and tsunami potentials.
Surui Xie, an assistant professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, is the PI for "Novel Designs of GNSS-Acoustic Surveying for Low-Cost Seafloor Geodesy." This is a collaborative research grant from the National Science Foundation jointly with a research team at the University of California San Diego. Mark Zumberge, a research geophysicist at UCSD, will lead the research team at the University of California San Diego. Two Ph.D. students from UH – Guoli Li and Demirkan Oral – are participating in research cruises for instrument deployment, which Xie has also taken part in.
"Scientists can track the motion and deformation of land extremely accurately using space, airborne, and terrestrial techniques. In contrast, about 71% of the Earth's surface is covered by oceans, and this portion is not well monitored. There are significant data gaps. Seafloor geodesy is the key technique to fill the gaps and improve our understanding about how Earth works."
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