Fireworks: A Potential Artificial Source for Imaging Near-Surface Structures

Abstract Seismic waves induced by incident acoustic waves from air disturbances can be used to image near-surface structures. In this article, we analyze seismic waveforms recorded by a dense array on the Xishancun landside in Li County, Sichuan Province, southwest China during the Lunar New Year’s Eve (27 January 2017). A total of eight event clusters have been identified as a result of firework explosions. For each cluster, which comprises dozens of individual events with high similarity, we manually pick arrival times of the first event recorded by the array and locate it with a grid-search method. We then rotate three-component waveforms of all events from the east, north, and vertical coordinate system to the local LQT coordinates (L, positive direction perpendicular to the landslide surface and pointing downwards; Q, positive direction is from the launch location of firework to the station along the landslide surface; T, perpendicular to the plane formed by the L and Q directions, and the selected positive direction of the T axis makes LQT form the left-hand coordinate system), and stack the LQT components for those events with cross-correlation values CC ≥ 0.8 with respect to the first event. Characteristics of the stacked LQT components are also examined. The particle motions at each station are retrograde ellipse in the frequency range of ∼5–50 Hz, suggesting air-coupled Rayleigh waves generated by the firework explosions. Spectrograms of the Rayleigh waves also show clear dispersions, which might be used to image near-surface velocity structures. Although we cannot directly extract the phase velocities due to the limitation of the seismic array, our study shows that the fireworks might provide a low-cost and easy-to-use seismic source for imaging near-surface structures.