EAGER SitS: Soil Soundscapes from Seismic Arrays

土壤是一种重要的自然资源，了解土壤颗粒如何以及为什么移动具有实践和理论意义。这项新的合作采用了一种新颖的方法，通过分析地震信号，从声景中研究土壤和生物过程，地震信号可以很容易地被地震仪测量到，地震仪通常用于监测地震。这项工作代表了跨学科前沿的探索阶段，通过连接地质学，地球物理学，生态学和生物学领域来理解土壤过程。研究人员将通过培训和学科整合以及连接已建立的美国国家科学基金会资助的网络和数据集来建立能力，以探测干旱的加利福尼亚大学保护区生态研究站（埃利奥特Chaparral保护区）和美国国家科学基金会资助的关键地带观测站/长期生态研究站：潮湿的热带森林观测站（波多黎各- Luquillo关键地带观测站）的土壤运动和混合过程。聆听以前闻所未闻的土壤声景是跨学科土壤研究的一个新领域，它将促进科学进步，并为资助的受训者和公众提供学习机会。该项目将包括为学生和社区成员（包括视障人士）举办一系列以地球声音为重点的公众宣传和培训活动。研究人员还将为加利福尼亚州拉霍亚的伯奇水族馆开发一个显示器，以比较土壤声景和海洋声景。传统上，现有地震阵列记录的99%以上的信号被认为是“噪音”而被忽略。然而，最近的工作强调了在大气、水圈和土壤中产生弹性波的过程。本研究旨在探索和量化土壤中的地质、生态和人类声音景观。生物因子在景观变化中起着重要的作用，因为动物和植物侵蚀、运输和沉积岩石、土壤和松散物质。尽管生物因子在驱动地表过程中发挥着明显的作用，但在定量地貌理论和模型的产生中，生物学和地貌学在很大程度上是相互独立的。动物在景观演化中所扮演的角色要么被普遍忽视，要么被广泛归类，因为大多数生物地貌因子的非均匀、非稳定性质难以记录和量化。随机的、“斑块状”的地貌扰动，如树木倒下和动物的沉积物运动，可以对景观、养分循环和土壤中的碳固存产生一级影响，但这些扰动调动、挖掘和掩埋沉积物的速率和频率是具有挑战性的。与传统的探测、监测和表征技术相比，地震观测和方法为土壤研究提供了互补的优势，因为它们提供了高时间分辨率和广泛的空间覆盖范围，是被动和非侵入性的，并提供了从多个来源和难以接近的环境中收集连续、实时观测的能力。虽然能够探测生物扰动的地震监测传感器已经在世界各地使用了几十年，但这些数据尚未被用于这一目的。地震学能力的广泛应用可以提供对机械驱动因素和震源过程之间联系的见解，并促进对潜在物理和地球表面与近地表过程之间关系的新见解。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Soil is a vital natural resource, and understanding how and why soil particles move has both practical and theoretical importance. This new collaboration takes a novel approach to studying soil and biotic processes from soundscapes by analyzing the seismic signals that can be readily measured by seismometers, which are usually used to monitor earthquakes. This work represents an exploratory phase in an interdisciplinary frontier to understand soil processes by bridging the fields of geology, geophysics, ecology and biology. The investigators will build capacity through training and integration of disciplines and linking established National Science Foundation-funded networks and datasets to probe soil movement and mixing processes in the arid University of California Reserve Ecological Research site (Elliott Chaparral Reserve) and a NSF-funded Critical Zone Observatory/Long-Term Ecological Research site: a humid, tropical forest site (Puerto Rico - the Luquillo Critical Zone Observatory). Listening to previously unheard soil soundscapes is a new horizon for interdisciplinary soil research that will facilitate scientific progress and learning opportunities for grant-supported trainees and the public. This project will include a series of public outreach and training activities focusing on earth sounds for students and community members, including those who are visually impaired. The investigators will also develop a display for the Birch Aquarium in La Jolla, CA to compare soil soundscapes and ocean soundscapes.Over ninety-nine percent of the signals recorded by existing seismic arrays are traditionally considered 'noise' and ignored. Recent work, however, has highlighted the generation of elastic waves by processes in the atmosphere, hydrosphere, and soil. This research aims to explore and quantify the geo-, eco- and anthro-soundscapes in soils. Biological agents play an important role in landscape change as animals and plants erode, transport, and deposit rock, soil, and unconsolidated material. Despite the obvious role that biological agents play in driving surface processes, biology and geomorphology have largely worked independently of one another in the generation of quantitative geomorphic theories and models. The role that animals play in landscape evolution is either generally ignored or broadly classified because the non-uniform, non-steady nature of most biogeomorphic agents is difficult to document and thus quantify. Stochastic, 'patchy' geomorphic disturbances like tree fall and movement of sediment by animals can exert first-order influences on landscapes and cycling of nutrients and carbon sequestration in soils, but the rates and frequencies at which these disturbances mobilize, exhume and bury sediment are challenging to constrain. Seismic observations and methods offer complementary advantages for soil studies compared to traditional detection, monitoring and characterization techniques because they provide high temporal resolution and broad spatial coverage, are passive and non-invasive, and provide the ability to collect continuous, real-time observations from multiple sources and inaccessible environments. Though the seismic monitoring sensors capable of detecting bioturbation have been used for decades throughout the world, these data have not yet been exploited for such a purpose. The broader use of seismological capabilities may provide insight into the connections between mechanistic drivers and source processes, and promote new insights into the underlying physics and relationships between Earth surface and near-surface processes.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.