Research Scientist · Earthquake Seismology

Asiye Aziz Zanjani

New Mexico Tech · NMT Seismological Observatory

Earth doesn't give up its secrets easily. Every earthquake leaves a story in the data, where stress brought a fault to rupture, how human activity modified the fluid-rock medium, how rupture on a fault loaded or unloaded neighboring faults. Even the noise on seismometers can tell us what the crust looks like beneath our feet. Unfolding those stories is what I do.

I'm a seismologist at New Mexico Bureau of Geology & Mineral Resources. My research brings together observational seismology, computational geophysics, and machine learning to investigate Earth structure, earthquake processes, tectonic deformation, and anthropogenic contributions to seismicity.

I use a suite of developed programs and tools in seismology, but I also develop code. My open-source Pick Aggregator is an ensemble ML workflow designed to produce high-precision earthquake catalogs that generalize to out-of-distribution data, particularly from hybrid and irregular seismic networks including ocean-bottom seismometers. Current application is develoing ensemble ML catalog for New Mexico.

Current focus areas include the Rio Grande Rift, induced seismicity in the Delaware and Raton Basins, and seismic imaging using ambient noise recorded by dense nodal arrays across southeast New Mexico.

Asiye Aziz Zanjani
Position Research Scientist
NMT Seismological Observatory
NM Bureau of Geology & Mineral Resources
Phone 575 835-5892
Address 801 Leroy Place #332
Socorro, NM 87801
Research

Core Research Areas

Approach

Research at a Glance

Using spatiotemporal patterns in seismicity resolved from high-resolution catalogs, I identify where deformation is localized across a region. InSAR satellite radar is particularly valuable here, revealing the total surface deformation resulting from both seismic and aseismic processes. Within induced seismicity frameworks, these patterns can be correlated with the evolution of pore pressure and poroelastic effects driven by fluid injection and extraction. I develop high-resolution earthquake catalogs using machine learning pickers and advanced relocation tools. I developed a module, Pick Aggregator that allows generation of ensemble ML catalogs on the SeisBench platform.

For seismic imaging, I analyze Green's functions constructed from ambient noise cross-correlation and receiver functions using dense nodal arrays. Stacking coherent noise allows me to measure surface wave dispersion, and receiver function analysis resolves crustal discontinuities. Then I use joint inversion to leverage the strengths of each dataset in constructing shear wave velocity structure. High-resolution velocity models are important not only for constraining seismic sources with precision, but also for resolving subsurface anomalies that can be interpreted alongside available geologic and geophysical data.

A third avenue in my research is stochastic ground motion modeling, a statistical framework for analyzing filtered ground velocities and Fourier spectral amplitudes of weak motion records in the time and frequency domains, respectively, to develop source-attenuation models that feed into hazard assessment.

Geography

Study Areas

Circle size reflects recency, larger markers indicate more recent or ongoing work.

Induced seismicity & New Mexico (current) Seismic imaging & tomography ML catalogs & OBS networks Ground motion modeling Source characterization & seismotectonics