Observation of Earth's free oscillation by dense GPS array: After the 2011 Tohoku megathrust earthquake

Abstract

Day-scale Earth's free oscillation after large earthquakes has been detected by underground instruments such as strainmeters, gravimeters and seismometers, to investigate Earth's internal structure, geodynamics, and source properties of earthquakes. Here we show that Global Positioning System (GPS) can also detect the signals of the Earth's free oscillation. A dense GPS array in Japan (GEONET) recorded the surface deformation following the 2011 Tohoku megathrust earthquake. A simple array analysis over 300 stations reduces local noise in GPS time series. We find that the dense GPS array truly detected both spheroidal and toroidal fundamental modes in three-direction displacement. This new tool has a strong potential to investigate the free oscillations particularly in low-frequency bands.