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Abstract Plate boundaries in the oceans are often poorly monitored. Though typically less remote than the deep sea, shallow marine environments with seafloor depths <0.5 km can be especially challenging for seismic experiments due to natural and anthropogenic hazards and noise sources that can affect instrument survival and data quality. The Queen Charlotte fault (QCF) is part of a transform plate boundary that follows the continental shelf of the Alaska Panhandle and central British Columbia. This fault system accommodates dextral slip between the Pacific and North American plates and has hosted several historic Mw > 7 earthquakes. In August 2021, we deployed 28 broadband ocean-bottom seismometers (OBSs) along the central QCF for the “Transform Obliquity along the Queen Charlotte Fault and Earthquake Study” (TOQUES) to investigate fault architecture and local seismicity. Deployment depths varied between 0.2 and 2.5 km below sea level, with half of the instruments deployed in shallow water (<0.5 km depth). We describe the scientific motivations for the TOQUES broadband OBS array, present data metrics, and discuss factors that influence data quality and instrument survival. We show that many opportunities exist for scientific study of shallow marine environments and the solid earth. Despite concerns that shallow water was responsible for the risk of data or instrument loss, direct relationships between instrument success and water depth are inconclusive. Rather, instrument success may be more related to the ability of different instrument designs to withstand shallow-water conditions. 

Scientists organized a trio of expeditions to document the buildup of stress leading to a large earthquake on a seafloor fault, developing innovations for successful seagoing research in the process. 

Abstract Geological processes at subduction zones and their associated geohazards (e.g., megathrust earthquakes, submarine landslides, tsunamis, and arc volcanism) are, to a large extent, controlled by the structure, physical properties and fluid content of the subducting plate, the accreted sediments, and the overriding plate. In these settings, modern seismic modeling and imaging techniques based on controlled-source, multicomponent ocean-bottom seismometer (OBS) data are some of the best tools available for determining the subseafloor elastic properties, which can be linked to the aforementioned properties. Here, we present CASIE21-OBS, a controlled-source marine wide-angle OBS data set recently collected across the Cascadia convergent margin as part of the larger CAscadia Seismic Imaging Experiment 2021 (CASIE21). The main component of CASIE21 is a long-offset multichannel seismic (MCS) survey of the Cascadia margin conducted in June–July 2021 onboard R/V M.G. Langseth (cruise MGL2104) aiming to characterize the incoming plate, the plate interface geometry and properties, and the overlying sediment stratigraphy and physical properties. CASIE21-OBS was conducted during R/V M.G. Langseth cruise MGL2103 (May 2021) and R/V Oceanus cruise OC2106A (June–July 2021). It consisted of 63 short-period four-component OBSs deployed at a total 120 stations along 10 across-trench profiles extending from ∼50 km seaward of the deformation front to the continental shelf, and from offshore northern Vancouver Island to offshore southern Oregon. The OBSs recorded the airgun signals of the CASIE21-MCS survey as well as natural seismicity occurring during the deployment period (24 May 2021 19:00 UTC–9 July 2021 09:00 UTC). The OBS data are archived and available at the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology Data Management Center under network code YR_2021 for continuous time series (miniSEED) and identifier 21-008 for assembled data set (SEG-Y). 

Abstract Establishing an extensive and highly durable, long-term, seafloor network of autonomous broadband seismic stations to complement the land-based Global Seismographic Network has been a goal of seismologists for decades. Seismic signals, chiefly the vibrations from earthquakes but also signals generated by storms and other environmental processes, have been processed from land-based seismic stations to build intriguing but incomplete images of the Earth’s interior. Seismologists have mapped structures such as tectonic plates and other crustal remnants sinking deep into the mantle to obtain information on their chemical composition and physical state; but resolution of these structures from land stations is not globally uniform. Because the global surface is two-thirds ocean, increasing the number of seismic stations located in the oceans is critical for better resolution of the Earth’s interior and tectonic structures. A recommendation for a long-term seafloor seismic station pilot experiment is presented here. The overarching instrumentation goal of a pilot experiment is performance that will lead to the installation of a large number of long-term autonomous ocean-bottom seismic stations. The payoff of a network of stations separated from one another by a few hundred kilometers under the global oceans would be greatly refined resolution of the Earth’s interior at all depths. A second prime result would be enriched understanding of large-earthquake rupture processes in both oceanic and continental plates. The experiment would take advantage of newly available technologies such as robotic wave gliders that put an affordable autonomous prototype within reach. These technologies would allow data to be relayed to satellites from seismometers that are deployed on the seafloor with long-lasting, rechargeable batteries. Two regions are presented as promising arenas for such a prototype seafloor seismic station. One site is the central North Atlantic Ocean, and the other high-interest locale is the central South Pacific Ocean. 

Abstract The Alaska Amphibious Community Seismic Experiment (AACSE) is a shoreline-crossing passive- and active-source seismic experiment that took place from May 2018 through August 2019 along an ∼700  km long section of the Aleutian subduction zone spanning Kodiak Island and the Alaska Peninsula. The experiment featured 105 broadband seismometers; 30 were deployed onshore, and 75 were deployed offshore in Ocean Bottom Seismometer (OBS) packages. Additional strong-motion instruments were also deployed at six onshore seismic sites. Offshore OBS stretched from the outer rise across the trench to the shelf. OBSs in shallow water (<262  m depth) were deployed with a trawl-resistant shield, and deeper OBSs were unshielded. Additionally, a number of OBS-mounted strong-motion instruments, differential and absolute pressure gauges, hydrophones, and temperature and salinity sensors were deployed. OBSs were deployed on two cruises of the R/V Sikuliaq in May and July 2018 and retrieved on two cruises aboard the R/V Sikuliaq and R/V Langseth in August–September 2019. A complementary 398-instrument nodal seismometer array was deployed on Kodiak Island for four weeks in May–June 2019, and an active-source seismic survey on the R/V Langseth was arranged in June 2019 to shoot into the AACSE broadband network and the nodes. Additional underway data from cruises include seafloor bathymetry and sub-bottom profiles, with extra data collected near the rupture zone of the 2018 Mw 7.9 offshore-Kodiak earthquake. The AACSE network was deployed simultaneously with the EarthScope Transportable Array (TA) in Alaska, effectively densifying and extending the TA offshore in the region of the Alaska Peninsula. AACSE is a community experiment, and all data were made available publicly as soon as feasible in appropriate repositories.