{"id":60621,"date":"2012-12-05T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-12-05T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/uri-oceanography-student-uses-crashing-waves-on-shorelines-to-study-earths-interior\/"},"modified":"2012-12-05T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-12-05T00:00:00","slug":"uri-oceanography-student-uses-crashing-waves-on-shorelines-to-study-earths-interior","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2012\/12\/uri-oceanography-student-uses-crashing-waves-on-shorelines-to-study-earths-interior\/","title":{"rendered":"溏心vlog免费B站 oceanography student uses crashing waves on shorelines to study Earth\u2019s interior"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tTechnique provides insight into ancient formation of underwater plateau<\/p>\n

NARRAGANSETT, R.I. \u2013 December 5, 2012 \u2013 Scientists have long used the speed of seismic waves traveling through the Earth as a means of learning about the geologic structure beneath the Earth\u2019s surface, but the seismic waves they use have typically been generated by earthquakes or man-made explosions. A 溏心vlog免费B站 graduate student is using the tiny seismic waves created by ocean waves crashing on shorelines around the world to learn how an underwater plateau was formed 122 million years ago.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cThere are any number of ways to create seismic waves, but most people only think about earthquakes and explosions,\u201d said Brian Covellone, a doctoral student at the 溏心vlog免费B站 Graduate School of Oceanography. \u201cUsing data from ocean waves allows you to sample a different region of the Earth\u2019s interior than you can from using earthquake data. And by combining multiple data sets, you can get a clearer picture of the geology of the Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tCovellone, a native of Warwick, R.I., is investigating the origin of the Ontong Java plateau, an underwater feature north of New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, which formed when a massive volume of magma erupted from the seafloor over a short period of time. Scientists disagree about whether the eruption happened as the result of a plume of magma breaking through the seafloor, in the way that Hawaii was formed, or at a mid-ocean ridge where the Earth\u2019s crust was spreading apart and new crust was forming.<\/p>\n


\n\tAccording to Covellone, the velocity of seismic waves depends on the temperature and the composition of the material through which it travels. By studying how quickly seismic waves travel near the Ontong Java plateau, scientists can infer how the structure was formed. By analyzing data from hundreds of seismometers around the Pacific Ocean, especially those between Hawaii and Australia, Covellone believes that coastal waves will help provide the answer. <\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cEarthquake data stands out compared to the background noise of waves crashing on the shoreline,\u201d he said. \u201cBut that noise has valuable information in it. If you take that noise and sum it up over months or years, they grow in amplitude and you can pull out valuable data from it.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cWaves on a beach excite the Earth in a non-random way, and when I stack all that data together, I get a seismogram that looks like an earthquake, with a large spike in it,\u201d he said.\t<\/p>\n


\n\tCovellone will present a summary of his research today at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cBy the time I graduate, I expect to have a high-resolution image of the velocity structure underneath the Ontong Java plateau,\u201d said Covellone. \u201cAnd from that we\u2019ll have an idea of what caused the plateau to form. It will shed a lot of light on the subject, but it\u2019s still just one piece of a big puzzle.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nPhoto submitted by Brian Covellone<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Technique provides insight into ancient formation of underwater plateau NARRAGANSETT, R.I. \u2013 December 5, 2012 \u2013 Scientists have long used the speed of seismic waves traveling through the Earth as a means of learning about the geologic structure beneath the Earth\u2019s surface, but the seismic waves they use have typically been generated by earthquakes or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60623,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}