Detection of recent seismic events in Storrs

Attached is our record for the Mw 6.9 earthquake associated with eruptions of the Kilauea volcano  on the big island of Hawaii.  The large waves arriving after 2300 GMT are surface waves (elastic energy that exponentially decays with depth away from the surface) traveling from the earthquake to us.  The beating pattern is characteristic of surface waves interfering from slightly different multi paths as they are refracted by the sharp transition in elastic structure between the ocean and continent.

The amplitude of strain associated with the waves is on the order of 10**-12 (peak particle velocity divided by propagation velocity).  For comparison, the strain associated with gravity waves recorded by LIGO is on the order of 10**-21.