Introduction to the Special Section on Seismoacoustics and Seismoacoustic Data Fusion

A variety of geophysical hazards (e.g., volcanic activity, earthquakes, mass movements, marine storms, and bolides) and anthropogenic sources (e.g., chemical and nuclear explosions, mining blasts, rocket launches, and military activity) can release energy as mechanical waves in the ground, ocean, and atmosphere (Campus and Christie, 2009; Arrowsmith et al., 2010). Because of the mechanical coupling between a planetary body, its ocean, and its atmosphere, waves propagate across these interfaces (Ben‐Menahem and Singh, 1981) and carry information about the source and the media they propagated through. The field of seismoacoustics, driven by geophysical observations of both seismic and low‐frequency acoustic (infrasound) waves, has several interdisciplinary applications. Observations of both seismic and infrasonic waves can be used to discriminate between atmospheric and subsurface events such as sonic booms and earthquakes. Moreover, seismoacoustic analyses can provide useful information for characterizing sources of shallow anthropogenic events such as underground or surface explosions, volcanic, and tectonic events (e.g., Matoza et al., 2009; Assink et al., 2016; de Groot‐Hedlin and Hedlin, 2019; Arrowsmith et al., 2021). Similarly, remote observations (e.g., on regional seismic and infrasonic arrays) can help monitor natural events such as volcanic eruptions and provide additional details about eruption dynamics. Recent works additionally suggest that infrasound can be used to discriminate between different volcanic processes (Watson et al., 2022). Finally, looking outward, the study of seismoacoustics has been a particularly valuable tool for planetary science (e.g., Krishnamoorthy et al., 2018, 2019; Martire et al., 2018, 2020; Garcia et al., 2021; Brissaud et al., 2021).

This special section of the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America provides a broad overview on recent advances to the understanding of the seismoacoustic wavefield through 19 articles. Leveraging multiphenomenology datasets is instrumental for the continued success of future planetary missions, nuclear test ban treaty verification, and natural hazard monitoring. Progress in our theoretical understanding of mechanical coupling, advancements in coupled‐media wave modeling, and developments of efficient multitechnology inversion procedures are key to fully exploiting geophysical datasets on Earth and beyond. We begin by highlighting papers describing experimental setups and instrumentation, followed by characterization of natural and anthropogenic sources of interest, and ending in new open‐access datasets. We conclude with an overview of challenges that remain as well as some potential directions for future investigation within the growing multidisciplinary field of seismoacoustics.