A New Journal Serving the Infrasound Community

doi:10.4236/inframatics.2013.23003

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InfraMatics, 2013, 2, 37-38

Published Online September 2013 (http://www.scirp.org/journal/inframatics)

http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/inframatics.2013.23003

A New Journal Serving the Infrasound Community

Michael A. H. Hedlin

Laboratory for Atmospheric Acoustics, University of California, San Diego, USA

Email: [email protected]

Received August 20, 2013; revised September 21, 2013; accepted September 29, 2013

which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

InfraMatics is an international peer-reviewed journal

dedicated to presenting observational and theoretical stud-

ies of atmospheric infrasound generation, propagation,

and reception that address outstanding problems in basic

and applied research. Under the auspices of Scientific

Research Publishing (SCIRP) three issues of InfraMatics

have been published since the refereed journal was in-

troduced in 2012. These issues can be found at http://

www.scirp.org/journal/inframatics. To date over 1500

copies of these issues have been downloaded and there

have been a total of over 20,000 visits to the site.

In 1883, the Krakatoa volcano awakened the world to

the existence of sub audible sound waves in the atmos-

phere. These waves, known as infrasound, can travel

thousands of kilometers and are readily detected by sen-

sitive microbarometers. We now kn ow that a wide varie-

ty of other naturally-occurring phenomena such as tor-

nadoes, landslides, earthquakes, meteors, aurora, atmos-

pheric turbulence, and interacting waves on the surface

of the ocean also generate infrasound. In addition, infra-

sound is also generated by a large number of man-made

sources including nuclear and chemical explosions, rock-

ets and supersonic aircraft. These long-period sound

waves were of great interest in the 1950’s and 1960’s

during the era of atmospheric nuclear testing. Interest

waned as the Limited Test-Ban Treaty pushed nuclear

testing underground. The Comprehensive Nuclear Test-

Ban Treaty rekindled interest, however. This treaty bans

all nuclear tests and establishes a monitoring network of

sensors that probe the Earth’s solid interior, oceans and

atmosphere for unusual signals. The infrasound net-

work will offer us an unpreced ented opportun ity to better

understand man-made and natural atmospheric phenom-

ena on a global scale. The global network is enhanced in

some regions by other infrasound arrays and, notably, in

the United States by the Transportable Array [1] that

comprises 400 combined seismic and acoustic stations on

a Cartesian grid spanning 2,000,000 km2. We anticipate

that the global network of listening posts that monitor the

Earth’s atmospheric shell will some day become as in-

dispensable as the global seismic network that monitors

Earth’s solid interior. There have been some noteworthy

events recorded recently by these stations including the

meteor that entered the Earth’s atmosphere above Chel-

yabinsk Russia in February, 2013. Signals from this

event were recorded by infrasound arrays after circling

the globe twice [2] and by the Transportable Array. An-

other recent event that was recorded by a large number of

infrasound stations was the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull,

Iceland [3].

InfraMatics is one of the journals sponsored by the

Scientific Research Publishing group headquartered in

Wuhan, China. It is the first and currently the only spe-

cialty journal in the field of infrasound. It was launched

under the philosophy of free sharing and use of scientific

information. This open-access online journal has a world-

wide representative panel of editorial board members,

who, together with external reviewers, carry out vigorous

and fair evaluation of each submitted manuscript. The

journal welcomes research on natural and anthropogenic

sources of infrasound in the atmosphere, oceans, or be-

low the Earth's surface, as well as studies of wave cou-

pling and interactions, data metrics, data analysis meth-

ods, instrumentation and standards. Topics of interest

include, but are not limited to:

 Infrasound data analysis methods;

 Infrasound data metric s;

 Infraso und sensors;

 Background noise reduction;

 Infraso und standards;

 Observational and theoretical studies of infrasound

generation, propag a tion and reception;

 Studies of natural and anthropogenic sources of infra-

sound;

 Studies of wave coupling and interactions.

The journal will also publish:

1) Short reports—2 - 5 page papers where an author

can present preliminary data or theoretical results before

completing the research needed for a complete paper;

2) Infrasound event reports.

InfraMatics charges a very affordable publication fee

for accepted papers, and manuscripts in all aspects of

M. A. H. HEDLIN

infrasound are consid ered for publication. This journal is

currently indexed by a number of world-class databases/

searching engines including CrossRef and Google Scho-

lar (http://www.scirp.org/journal/inframatics).

The editorial team and publisher anticipate a healthy

growth of this journal in the future. As a part of increased

interest in infrasound, InfraMatics seeks to serve a unique

and important international platform for scientific com-

munication in infrasound research.

REFERENCES

[1] R. W. Busby, F. L. Vernon, R. L. Newman and L. Astiz,

“Earth-Sc ope ’ s US Array : Ad vancin g East wa r d,” Eos Trans.

AGU, Vo l . 8 7, No . 5 2 , 200 6 , Abstract U41B-0820.

[2] A. Le Pichon, L. Ceranna, C. Pilger, P. Mialle, D. Brown,

P. Herry and N. Brachet, “The 2013 Russian Fireball

Largest Ever Detected by CTBTO Infrasound Sensors,”

Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 40, No. 14, 2013, pp.

3732-3737. doi:10.1002/grl.50619

[3] R. S. Matoza, et al., “Long-Range Acoustic Observations

of the Eyjafjallajökull Eruption, Iceland, April-May

2010,” Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 38, No. 6,

2011, Article ID: L06308.

doi:10.1029/2011GL047019