Cycling seismologist.
I am a Lecturer in Geophysics at Victoria University of Wellington. I conduct research on earthquake processes and fault-zone properties using detailed, long-duration earthquake catalogues and subsequent analyses. For more about me, check out my staff page.
To facilitate our group's research I lead the development and maintainence of the EQcorrscan Python package. EQcorrscan hosts codes for the detection and analysis of repeating and near-repeating seismicity. The package is open-source (LGPL licenced) and is developing a small community.
If you can't get hold of me, I'm probably out riding bikes in the hills around Wellington.
My research focuses on seismology and fault mechanics. I use detailed catalogues of earthquakes as a tool to study earthquake processes and Earth properties.
This project aims to develop scientifically useful earthquake catalogues throughout Aotearoa, and study the interactions between earthquakes and other fault slip phenomena. This project forms part of a Royal Society Te Apārangi Rutherford Discovery Fellowship held by Dr Calum Chamberlain.
We aim to study the structure, stress and earthquake interactions at the Puysegur subduction zone beneath Fiordland in southern New Zealand. The Puysegur subduction zone is a relatively young subduction zone and regularly produces moderate to large (M>5) earthquakes. Despite this seismicity and the tectonic significance of this system, the Puysegur subduction zone has received relatively little attention, mostly due to its remote nature. We are deploying a new network of seismometers and GNSS receivers throughout Fiordland in summer 2023 to better resolve the seismicity and deformation of the Puysegur subduction zone. This project is funded by a Royal Society Te Apārangi Rutherford Discovery Fellowship held by Dr Calum Chamberlain.
New Zealand’s largest city, Auckland, sits atop the ~53 volcanic centres of the Auckland Volcanic Field (AVF). The AVF poses a substantial hazard to Auckland, but we think that volcanic unrest in the AVF is likely to be preceded by elevated rates of earthquake occurrence. We will apply modern computational methods to detect and locate small earthquakes within the Auckland Volcanic Field to generate the most complete picture of seismic activity in the volcanic field to date. This catalogue will underpin future unrest assessments, helping to both understand the Auckland Volcanic Field, and respond to any future unrest. This project is funded by New Zealand’s Earthquake Commission.
I am currently operationalising Real-time matched-filter methods with the goal of improving source characterisation and aftershock catalogues after large earthquakes to allow for faster, more accurate aftershock forecasting. This work builds on a Python package that we recently developed, RT-EQcorrscan.
As part of a Royal Society of New Zealand, Marsden Fast-Start grant, we are developing a repeating earthquake catalogue for New Zealand. We have two MSc projects at VUW working on this catalogue.
First documentation of 14 low-frequency earthquake (LFE) families near the inferred deep extent of the Alpine Fault (Chamberlain et al., 2014)
Victoria University of Wellington PhD student Laura-May Baratin has updated the initial catalogue with improved locations, longer duration and added focal mechanisms (Baratin et al., 2018).
We are now working on extending the catalogue using more templates in an effort to generate a spatially and temporally continuous catalogue.
The Deep Fault Drilling Project is a multi-national effort to drill into and sample the Alpine Fault at depth to study fault processes on a major fault thought to be late in it's seismic cycle.
I was involved in the real-time seismic monitoring for DFDP-2 which found elevated temperatures at moderate depths (Sutherland et al., 2017).
The Tasman Glacier is a large temperate glacier (containing 29% of New Zealand's perenial ice) near Mt. Cook in the central Southern Alps.
During high-rainful Tasman Glacier accelerates, as observed by Horgan et al. (2015) and radiates tremor-like seismic energy.
SAMBA is a network of short-period sensors deployed mostly in shallow (post-hole) boreholes, with three deeper borehole sites, and four short-period surface sensors to extend the network over the LFE and tremor source region.
Data from SAMBA are available from IRIS
A Python package for detection and analysis of repeating and near-repeating seismicity.
EQcorrscan has been under development since 2015, and is now (as of late 2017) in a reasonably useful and stable state. I have so-far led the development of this software, and it forms the backbone for a lot of my research.
EQcorrscan is developed on github, and installable via pip or anaconda.
