Environmental Seismology
Seismological Research Letters (SRL) is soliciting papers for a Focus Section on Environmental Seismology.
Beyond tectonic earthquakes, a broad spectrum of Earth system processes generate ground and air vibrations that can be captured and deciphered by seismic and acoustic sensors — an emerging field now recognized as environmental seismology. These signals originate from processes such as landslides, cryospheric activity, and interactions between both the atmosphere and hydrosphere with the solid Earth. Through active or passive monitoring, these signals yield valuable insights into catastrophic failures, incipient or ongoing slope instabilities, subsurface hydrological dynamics, and many additional environmental processes — some of which are hazardous. The rapid growth of environmental seismology has fueled significant advances not only in scientific understanding of Earth systems but also in technological innovation, ranging from advanced monitoring and imaging techniques to low-cost sensors and dense seismo-acoustic arrays.
Yet important challenges and fundamental questions remain. For example, how can subtle environmental signals be reliably extracted from continuous seismic data? How can the seismo-acoustic generation and propagation of these processes be more accurately modeled? How can seismic and acoustic observations be integrated with seismic hazard, hydrological, cryospheric, atmospheric and oceanographic studies to advance Earth system science?
We invite submissions that use seismic and acoustic data (e.g., infrasound) to advance any perspectives on environmental processes including, but not limited to, the characterization of mass movements, cryospheric activity, subsurface hydrology, atmospheric/oceanic processes and more. We also encourage manuscripts that investigate the development of instrumentation and methodology, such as dense seismo-acoustic sensors (e.g., fiber-optic cables) and signal detection and classification techniques (e.g., machine-learning), as well as the integration of seismic observations with other complementary environmental datasets.
Guest Editors:
- Robert Anthony, USGS Albuquerque Seismological Laboratory, New Mexico (reanthony@usgs.gov)
- Michael Baker, Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque (mgbaker@sandia.gov)
- Thomas Hudson, Department of Earth and Planetary Science, ETH Zurich (thomas.hudson@eaps.ethz.ch)
- Zhichao Shen, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (zhichao.shen@whoi.edu)
- Liam Toney, USGS Landslide Hazards Program, Golden, Colorado (ltoney@usgs.gov)
Deadline for Submission: 15 January 2026
Papers will be reviewed as they are received. Articles accepted to this SRL Focus Section on Environmental Seismology will be published online soon after acceptance and collectively in the July 2026 print issue.
In preparing manuscripts, authors must follow the SRL author guidelines at seismosoc.org/publications/srl-authorsinfo/. Papers must be submitted via the SRL online submission system (editorialmanager.com/srl/) under the category “Focus Section – Environmental Seismology.”
Please address questions about scientific issues to the guest editors or SRL Editor-in-Chief Allison Bent at srleditor@seismosoc.org. Submission-related questions should be addressed to the SRL Editorial Office at srl@seismosoc.org.