Continuous aftershock hum for over ten days following the 2019 Ridgecrest, California, earthquakes observed with borehole seismometers

Peter M. Shearer, & Nader Senobari

Under Review 2025, SCEC Contribution #14157

Seismograms from two borehole seismometers near the 2019 Ridgecrest, California, aftershock sequence do not return to pre-mainshock noise levels for over ten days after the M 7.1 Ridgecrest mainshock. The observed distribution of RMS amplitudes in these records can be explained with the Reasenberg and Jones (1989) aftershock occurrence model, which implies a continuous seismic "hum" of overlapping aftershocks of M > -2 occurring at an average rate of 10 events/second after ten days, which prevents observing the background aseismic noise level at times between the body-wave arrivals from cataloged and other clearly observed events. Even after the borehole noise levels return at their quietest times to pre-mainshock conditions, the presence of overlapping low-magnitude earthquakes for 80 days is implied by waveform cross-correlation results provided using the Matrix Profile (MP) method. These results suggest a hidden frontier of tiny earthquakes that potentially can be measured and characterized even in the absence of detection and location of individual events.

Citation
Shearer, P. M., & Senobari, N. (2025). Continuous aftershock hum for over ten days following the 2019 Ridgecrest, California, earthquakes observed with borehole seismometers. Seismological Research Letters, (under review).