Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Lava tubes, a common volcanic feature on terrestrial planets, offer critical insights into lava flow processes and may serve as future potential habitats for space crews and other facilities on the Moon and Mars. Seismic detection of these features is challenging as the irregular morphology and rough cave ceilings and walls generate complex seismic wavefields dominated by strong scattering and reverberation rather than pure reflections. Here we present observations of enhanced backscattering in seismic data collected above terrestrial lava tubes. We show that the spatial and frequency characteristics of wavefield intensity can be related to the dimensions of the lava tubes. Our findings suggest that, when geological indicators such as collapse pits are present, this method would enable mapping lava tubes on Earth and, by proxy, on the Moon and Mars, and that the approach is readily adaptable for future planetary exploration.
Source: Geophysical Research Letters
DOI: 10.1029/2025gl116494
Authors: Jingchuan Wang, Nicholas C. Schmerr, Naoma McCall, Sarah Kruse, Vedran Lekić, Patrick L. Whelley, Jacob Giles, Linden Wike, John D. West, Ryan Porter, Maria E. Banks, John Coonan, Naya Deykes, Saffat Shahid, Zachary Vig, Michael Zanetti
Language: English
Topic: Seismic Waves and Analysis
Subfield: Geophysics
Field: Earth and Planetary Sciences
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $3,190
OpenAlex ID: W4413436260