Seismometers as infrasound sensors

An experiment was conducted in West-Central Mississippi in which five explosive charges were detonated. The TNT equivalent sizes of the charges ranged from 0.57 to 10.91 kg (1.25 to 24 lb). Among the arrays of sensors deployed, seismometers were deployed near microphones at distances of 0.5, 2.1, and 8.4 km from the source. The blast wave at these distances had decayed in amplitude to an acoustic wave. The coherence between the seismometer and microphone signals showed that the seismometer provided reasonable representation of the acoustic wave over limited frequency bands; however, these bands changed between sensor locations. In addition, two 3-component seismometers were deployed near each other 8.4 km from the source. These seismometers were of different types, one having a resonance frequency of 1 Hz and the other at 4.5 Hz. The signals from the horizontal components of these seismometers were analyzed to determine their effectiveness as vector sensors. The results showed that the back-azimuth determined from the seismometers agreed reasonably well with ground truth for the first arrival of the acoustic wavefront; however, the results degraded as the trailing part of the wavefront passed. Permission to publish was granted by the Director, Geotechnical and Structures Laboratory.