Using hydroacoustic stations as water column seismometers

Getting seismic data from the deep oceans usually involves ocean-bottom seismometers, but hydrophone arrays may provide a practical alternative means of obtaining vector data. We here explore this possibility using hydrophone stations of the International Monitoring System, which have been used to study icebergs and T-wave propagation among others. These stations consist of three hydrophones at about the depth of the deep sound channel in a horizontal triangle array with 2 km sides. We use data from these stations in the very low-frequency regime (0.01-0.05 Hz band) to demonstrate that these stations can also be used as water column seismometers. By differencing the acoustic pressure, we obtain vector quantities analogous to what a seismometer would record. Comparing processed hydrophone station records of the 2004 Great Sumatra-Andaman Earthquake with broadband seismograms from a nearby island station, we find that the differenced hydrophones are indeed a practical surrogate for seismometers.