Ann_Malayil

August 9th, 2023

This internship was a fantastic experience for me. I learned a lot of new things about seismology and some more profound aspects of it. Even during each step, my mentor, the Ph.D. student I worked with, and others were here to help and guide me. Dr.Frost provided me with resources such as research papers, small lectures, and meetings to deeply understand what I was doing and why I was doing this project. I was working to create the 1D velocity model for the Elgin_Lugoff area using the earthquake swarm that occurred in this area. I learned how manually pick the arrival of waves from 85 nodes and for many events, and I learned how to work on Pickax, GMT, and Velest. Currently, I am about to work on hypoDD to better relocation of earthquakes using my results. We used the Charleston velocity model as the reference. Still, technically we can not use this velocity model because Charleston is closer to the coast. Elgin is located more inland and has a thin sediment layer, slightly different thicknesses of layers, and geology. After obtaining the initial velocity model, I changed the velocity and depth, each layer at a time to get the best-fit model. I will attach some of the results here; I am still making changes and running Velest, making modifications to the velocity model to understand the best-fit velocity model.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Those values are the lowest RMS (root mean square) values that I received, which means fewer misfits. 

This is my last week in Columbia, SC. I had a great 10 weeks here in SC. I learned a lot of new and cool things about seismology and about my project. I am really grateful for having this opportunity to participate in this internship program. This was the best productive summer that I have ever had. I learned some coding; I learned how to read scientific papers more efficiently and how to organize my work etc. Seismology was a relatively new topic for me, but after finishing this internship, I have some understanding of seismology (I still have to learn a lot). Also, another thing that excites me a lot is that I submitted the abstract about the project that I am working on for this year's AGU meeting. Hopefully, I can go there and present the poster about my research and show them my results. 

Along with progressing in my project, I also found some time to explore this beautiful state; I went for different hikes and sightseeing. South Carolina is a beautiful state. 

                                                              

                           

July 17th, 2023

The red triangles are the broadband seismometers, and the yellow triangles are the nodal seismometers.

This is the map of the study area that I created using GMT. In this map, we can observe the broadband seismic stations around south carolina and the 85 Smartsolo 5Hz three-component nodes to the epicenter region of the Elgin-Lugoff earthquake swarm. The earthquake swarm started in the Elgin-Lugoff area on December 2021, with earthquakes with magnitudes less than four. This is not a seismically active area, and earthquake swamps in interplate boundaries like this study area are rare. My project is to create a 1D velocity model of the local subsurface structure using the data collected from these nodes, and it will help to understand more about earthquake swarms and regional geology.

My internship is going well so far. I am learning new things and improving my skills every day. I am making good progress so far. One of the main challenges I face is understanding and running specific codes. But I am making good improvements in learning coding as well. My mentor and the graduate student I work with are also helping me make this progress. The second challenge that I face is understanding some research papers and some scientific terms or techniques it refers to. But I will look them up and try to learn from different resources or discuss them with my mentor to understand them more clearly.
Along with these challenges, some of the successes that I had been I learned how to manually pick the arrival of P and S waves using Pickax. Now I am learning how to use Veleset to relocate the earthquakes and make the 1D velocity model of the study area. I learned about different techniques used in seismology.

June 28th, 2023

I am working on the seismic data from Elgin, SC. My project focuses on the Earthquake swarm there. This earthquake swarm is continuous 85 small earthquakes with a magnitude of less than 3. The data I am working on is mainly from the 85 seismic nodes deployed right on top of the Elgin-Lugoff swarm. All the earthquakes I am studying are low-magnitude, and some deployed nodes are near residential areas or roads. So we can observe some noises along with the data. Most of the data I am working on are not widely used,  and the Ph.D. student of Dr. Dan Frost, Mr. Ademar Fernandez, and I are working on this. We all are in the process of making this data available to the public. So, we are picking the arrival of the P and S waves of these events. So we are using Pickax for that, and I can apply different filters to it. Later this week, we will start using VELEST to work on the velocity model of the Elgin Earthquake swarm.
Along with making progress in my research, one of the skills I have to improve through this internship is to "Learn how to ask a question, what to ask, and who to ask a question." I believe that asking questions is very important in the process of learning something. I have to make improvements in this area, which will enhance my productivity and it helps to create a deep understanding of this project I am working on. Also, improving these skills will help me personally and professionally. 

June 14th, 2023

I am working under Dr. Daniel Frost at the University of South Carolina this summer. The project that my working on is studying the Earthquake swarms in Elgin, SC. I finished the first week of my internship. In this first week, I referred to different scientific papers to understand my study area's geological and tectonic setting and the tools and techniques I must use to finish my internship successfully. Through this internship, I hope to understand and study more about this. 
My Goals to achieve for this summer:
-Attain a good understanding of seismology and the project I am working on this summer. Learn different skills and techniques to perform well in my internship. Also, I have to improve on my coding skills.
-I have to learn to plot earthquake data and identify the wave arrivals, and also about the receiver functions and their application of them. Then I will construct the velocity model of the Earthquake. I have to prepare for the AGU poster presentation as well.

I am excited to see how the rest of the weeks will unfold. I also want to explore South Carolina on weekends. I want to go on different hikes and explore the cities and beaches.