• Simon C. Stähler

    Seismology everywhere

  • Blog

    The latest from the lab and the field

  • Current collaborations

    standing next to giants (without stepping on their toes)

    Philippe Lognonné

    Université de Paris / IPGP

    The original planetary seismologist. Philippe was behind the decade-long effort to get a seismometer to Mars. We collaborate on InSight and after InSight towards the moon.

    her site

    Mark Panning

    Jet Propulsion Laboratory

    Mark is at the place that gets stuff to space and to planets. He makes sure that seismometers are on board.

    his site

    Domenico Giardini

    ETH Zürich

    The head of our group at ETH. Together, we aim at investigating what InSight's seismic data tells us about Mars.

    his site

    Kasra Hosseini

    University of Oxford / Alan Turing Institute

    Kasra will be the first to use M.C. Kernel for a seismic tomography, based on his extensive P and Pdiff dataset

    his site

    Anna Mittelholz

    Harvard University

    Despite not being a seismologist, Anna is curious about marsquakes and what they tell us about the planet's geological history.

    her site

    Céline Hadziioannou

    University of Hamburg

    Earthquake-free seismology. Using seismic signals created from ocean waves, trucks or just anything for monitoring.

  • Recent publications

    and why you should be interested

    Steinachtalbrücke under construction

    Seismic wave propagation in icy ocean worlds

    The next years will see the decision for a seismometer-equipped lander on Europa or Titan. We tried to predict what could be measured on Europa, Titan, Enceladus or Ganymede.

    Stähler, Simon C., Mark P. Panning, Steven D. Vance, Ralph D. Lorenz, Martin van Driel, Tarje Nissen‐Meyer, and Sharon Kedar. 2018. “Seismic Wave Propagation in Icy Ocean Worlds.” J Geophys. Res.: Planets 123 (1): 206–32. doi:10.1002/2017JE005338.

    Fully probabilistic seismic source inversion – Part 2: Modelling errors and station covariances

    The long-awaited sequel

    How can we construct a Likelihood function for non-Gaussian noise on seismic waveforms? Turns out that the dependable Correlation Coefficient follows a log-normal distribution, so we can use that.

    Stähler, Simon C., and Karin Sigloch. 2016. “Fully Probabilistic Seismic Source Inversion – Part 2: Modelling Errors and Station Covariances.” Solid Earth 7 (6): 1521–36. doi:10.5194/se-7-1521-2016.

    Performance report of the RHUM-RUM ocean bottom seismometer network around La Réunion, western Indian Ocean

    Overview of OBS performance in the RHUM-RUM project, especially in comparison between the German (DEPAS) and the French (INSU) seismometers.

    Stähler, S. C., Sigloch, K., Hosseini, K.,
    Crawford, W. C., Barruol, G., Schmidt-Aursch, M. C., Tsekhmistrenko, M.,
    Scholz, J.-R., Mazzullo, A., and Deen, M.: Performance report of the
    RHUM-RUM ocean bottom seismometer network around La Réunion, western
    Indian Ocean, Adv. Geosci., 41, 43-63, doi:10.5194/adgeo-41-43-2016,
    2016.

     

    Bayesian beach ball

    Fully probabilistic seismic source inversion I - Efficient parametrization

    This paper deals with the inverse problem of seismic point source inversion. It describes an efficient parametrization to invert for earthquake depth, moment tensor and source time function using Bayesian inference with Malcolm Sambridge's Neighbourhood Algorithm.

    Stähler, S. C. and K. Sigloch (2014): Fully probabilistic seismic source inversion – Part 1: Efficient parametrisation, Solid Earth, 5, 1055-1069

    doi:10.5194/se-5-1055-2014

    Instaseis: instant global seismograms based on a broadband waveform database

    Instaseis is a Python library to calculate broadband seismograms for arbitrary source-receiver configurations, including finite faults and single forces from a stored AxiSEM wavefield.

    van Driel, M., Krischer, L., Stähler, S. C., Hosseini, K., and Nissen-Meyer, T. (2015). Instaseis: instant global seismograms based on a broadband waveform database

    Solid Earth, 6, 701-717

    doi:10.5194/se-6-701-2015

    Steinachtalbrücke under construction

    Monitoring stress changes in a concrete bridge with coda wave interferometry

    Coda waves contain information about a large volume around the source and receiver. We use that method to monitor stress changes in a bridge during construction.

    Stähler, S. C., E. Niederleithinger, and C. Sens-Schönfelder (2011), Monitoring stress changes in a concrete bridge with coda wave interferometry, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 129(4), 1945-1952,

    doi:10.1121/1.3553226.

  • Educational resources

    Introductory seismology with animations

    Seismic wavefield perturbed by plumes and slabs

    This video shows the seismic wavefield of an earthquake in a mantle that contains a subducting slab on the left and an upwelling megaswell-structure on the right. The situation is comparable to Southern America on the left and Africa on the right with the earthquake happening in the Central Atlantic ocean at the mid-ocean ridge.

    Note that the velocity anomalies are exaggerated to make the effect more prominent.

    Seismic wavefield in the Jovian moon Europa

    AxiSEM is able to model seismic wave propagation in terrestrial planets in general. One of the most fascinating objects in the solar system is Europa, with its abysmal ocean below a few kilometers of ice. The structure results in a wavefield that is completely different from what we see on Earth. Most of the wave energy is either contained inside the ice (especially SH-waves) or is reverberating inside the ocean.

    Seismic wavefield in the Earth

    This video shows the seismic wavefield in the Earth's mantle assuming the velocity depends only on depth.

    Seismic wavefield perturbed by a megaswell-structure

    This video shows a wavefield in a mantle that contains a megaswell.

  • MC Kernel

    Calculate seismic sensitivity kernels on irregular meshes for high frequencies

  • Where to find me

    ETH Zürich

    Institut für Geophysik

    Seismologie und Geodynamik

    Twitter

     

    ResearchGate