Sources and Spatiotemporal Patterns of Anthropogenic Infrasound in Urban Areas

Abstract:

Anthropogenic sound is often disregarded as noise in seismoacoustic research. However, it is a rich source of information on both human activity and atmospheric processes. We analyzed and categorized infrasound signals from urban and suburban environments, using data from eleven infrasound stations in Las Vegas, NV. Recordings from the stations started in March, 2019, and continued into the summer of 2020. We compared the recordings from these urban and suburban stations to data from more remote sites. We found that urban infrasound is dominated by continuous signals, which tend to be narrowband signals at a distinct or oscillating frequency, but sometimes cover a wider range of frequencies and lack a distinct upper or lower bound. Such sound exists alongside recurring signals that tend to be broadband in nature or fluctuate in frequency with time. To our knowledge this is the first systematic examination of anthropogenic infrasound in urban areas. We expect that these signals encode patterns of human activity that may be useful in assessing traffic levels, industrial output, and power usage. Further, a basic knowledge of urban signals may allow characterization of the planetary boundary layer based on ambient noise levels. SNL is managed and operated by NTESS under DOE NNSA contract DE-NA0003525