Tieyuan Zhu
My research aims to improve the geophysical understanding of dynamic processes at Earth’s surface and in the subsurface. We combine multi-geophysics sensing including conventional seismometers, fiber-optic sensing, ground penetrating radar, wave-physics modeling, and machine learning to detect and interpret motion, deformation, fracture, and environmental change.
A growing focus of our work is the dynamics of the Arctic cryosphere, including sea-ice movement and collisions with landfast ice, ice-wedge cracking, permafrost change, and interactions among ice, ocean, atmosphere, and coastal landscapes. We also study landslides and other geohazards, hydrological and storm-driven processes, and fluid and fracture evolution in geothermal and carbon-storage systems.
By integrating continuous field observations with computational and physical models, we seek to understand how dynamic Earth systems respond to environmental forcing, how they transition toward failure, and how geophysical measurements can improve their monitoring and prediction.
Gou L., Xiao M., Zhu T., Martin E., Santos G., Wang Z., (2026). Physics-Informed Digital Twins for Predicting Arctic Permafrost Thermodynamics. Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface,131, e2025JF008787. https://doi.org/10.1029/2025JF008787
Santos G., & Zhu, T. (2025). Seismic tremors from sea-landfast ice interactions near Utqiaġvik, Alaska. Geophysical Research Letters, 52, e2025GL117458. https://doi.org/10.1029/2025GL117458
Shen J., and Zhu T.. (2025). Constraining water dynamics through the Earth’s critical zone using fiber-optic seismic sensing data, Earth and Planetary Science Letters, Volume 666, 15 September 2025, 119507.
Liu X., Zhu T. and Hayes J., (2022), Critical zone structure by elastic full-waveform inversion of seismic refractions in a sandstone catchment, central Pennsylvania, USA., Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 127, e2021JB023321. PDF https://doi.org/10.1029/2021JB023321
Zhu T., Zhang J. and Lin Y.T., (2021). Ultra-thick paleoregolith layer detected by lunar penetrating radar: implication for fast regolith formation between 3.6 and 2.35 Ga. Geophysical Research Letters, 48, e2021GL095282. PDF https://doi.org/10.1029/2021GL095282
Xing G., and Zhu T., (2021), A viscoelastic model for seismic attenuation using fractal mechanical network, Geophys. J. Int, 224(3),1658–1669. https://doi.org/10.1093/gji/ggaa549
Zhu T., Ajo-Franklin J., Daley T.M., and Marone C., (2019) Dynamics of geologic CO2 storage and plume motion revealed by seismic coda waves, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 116 (7) 2464-2469; DOI:10.1073/pnas.1810903116.
Zhu T. and Stensrud D., (2019), Characterizing thunder-induced ground motions using fiber-optic distributed acoustic sensing array, Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 124, 12810-12823
Zhu, T., Ajo-Franklin J., and Daley T.M., (2017), Spatio-temporal changes of seismic attenuation caused by injected CO2 at the Frio-II pilot site, Dayton TX, USA, Journal of Geophysical Research-Solid Earth, 122(9), 7156-7171, doi/10.1002/2017JB014164
Zhu T., and Harris J. M., (2014), Modeling acoustic wave propagation in heterogeneous attenuating media using decoupled fractional Laplacians: Geophysics, 79, no.3, T10 5-T116, doi:10.1190/geo2013-0245.1.