Characteristics of Low-frequency Ambient Seismic Noise in South Korea

To investigate spatial and temporal variations of low-frequency (>= 5 Hz) ambient seismic noise, we analyzed the noise data recorded for one whole year of 2014 at surface accelerometer stations in South Korea. After decomposed into low-frequency (LF; < 1 Hz) and high-frequency (HF; >= 1 Hz) components, the root-mean-squared (RMS) amplitudes and power spectral densities (PSD) of the noise data were computed. The RMS amplitudes were larger on islands and near-shore stations, but also large RMS amplitudes were observed at inland stations in large cities only for HF components. The RMS amplitudes of HF components were larger in the daytime than at nighttime and during weekdays than on Sunday and holidays. This indicates the HF components are closely related to human activities. On the contrary, daily and weekly variations were not clear in the LF components while they showed seasonal variations with its maximum during the winter and a good correlation with significant wave height. Therefore, we interpret the mechanism of LF components is closely related to natural phenomena such as sea. The amplitude of LF components decreased as an exponential function of the distance to the center of typhoons. The exponential index of -0.76 suggested that ambient seismic noise included both surface and body waves. Peak frequencies of the PSD curves were near 0.34 Hz indicating the double frequency. No temporal variation in the peak frequency was clearly noticed.