Martin Heesemann

Continental microseismic intensity delineates oceanic upwelling timing along the west coast of North America

The biological productivity of coastal upwelling regions undergoes marked interannual variability as marine ecosystems respond to changes in the prevailing winds. Determination of the principal metrics that define the upwelling cycle—the spring transition, when ocean conditions switch from downwelling- to upwelling-favorable, and the Fall Transition, when conditions return to downwelling-favorable—is essential for understanding changes in coastal productivity. Here we demonstrate that upwelling in the northern California Current System may be delineated by changes in microseismic activity recorded at a broadband seismological station in southwestern British Columbia. Observed high correlation between microseismic intensity and offshore bottom pressure fluctuations at ~0.2 Hz confirms a direct link to regional wind-wave generation. Comparison of transition times derived from coincident 20 year records of microseismic intensity and alongshore wind stress for the British Columbia-Oregon coast suggests that seismically derived times may be more representative of coastal upwelling than times derived using traditional methods.

Resonant seismic and microseismic ground motion of the Cascadia subduction zone accretionary prism and implications for seismic velocity

Seafloor pressure and seismic observations have been made along a transect of sites off southwestern Canada using connections to the NEPTUNE Canada cabled network beginning in the fall of 2009. A comparison of the vertical ground motion response to oceanographic and seismic loading at a site on the outer Cascadia subduction zone accretionary prism to that at a site on the adjacent Juan de Fuca Plate shows generally stronger ground motion at the prism site across the full bandwidths of infragravity waves and microseisms and a strong sharp peak in the relative response at a period of 9 s. This peak is seen in the response to loading by local storm waves and dispersive swell sequences, as well as in the average response to storm- and swell-generated pressure fluctuations averaged over long periods of time. Tuned response to teleseismic surface waves is also seen at the same frequency. We infer that this behavior results from quarter-wavelength harmonic resonance of the prism, with the two-way travel time of compressional waves between the seafloor and underlying igneous crust being one half the resonance period. The consistency of the anomalous spectral peak from year to year at this particular site suggests that the behavior might be used to track small (≈1%) changes in the vertical seismic velocity of the prism if variations related to strain or pore fluid pressure changes through a subduction thrust earthquake cycle were to occur.

Distributed natural gas venting offshore along the Cascadia margin

Widespread gas venting along the Cascadia margin is investigated from acoustic water column data and reveals a nonuniform regional distribution of over 1100 mapped acoustic flares. The highest number of flares occurs on the shelf, and the highest flare density is seen around the nutrition-rich outflow of the Juan de Fuca Strait. We determine ∼430 flow-rates at ∼340 individual flare locations along the margin with instantaneous in situ values ranging from ∼6 mL min−1 to ∼18 L min−1. Applying a tidal-modulation model, a depth-dependent methane density, and extrapolating these results across the margin using two normalization techniques yields a combined average in situ flow-rate of ∼88 × 106 kg y−1. The average methane flux-rate for the Cascadia margin is thus estimated to ∼0.9 g y−1m−2. Combined uncertainties result in a range of these values between 4.5 and 1800% of the estimated mean values.Methane venting is a widespread phenomenon at the Cascadia margin, however a comprehensive database of methane vents at this margin is lacking. Here the authors show that the margin-wide average methane flow-rate ranges from ~4 × 106 to ~1590 × 106 kg y−1 and is on average around 88 ± 6 × 106 kg y−1.