Sarah Elizabeth Donne
Post Doctoral Researcher
Researchers
University College Dublin

OVERVIEW

Sarah received her B.Sc. in Climate and Earth Systems Science from University College Dublin in 2011. She completed her Ph.D. in Oceanography and Seismology in 2015 entitled ‘Relationships Between Microseism Generation and Ocean Wave Parameters in the Northeast Atlantic, West of Ireland’. This work involved understanding the mechanical coupling between the ocean water layer and the solid earth in a range of water depths off the west coast of Ireland. One aim was to estimate ocean wave heights using terrestrial seismic data (generated by the oceans also known as microseisms) distributed throughout Ireland by attempting to quantify the relationship between the two datasets. This was done using Artificial Neural Networks and compared against Grammatical Evolution through a collaboration with the Complex and Adaptive Systems Laboratory (CASL) at UCD. The results from this land based ocean wave height estimation were extremely encouraging. Also, through a collaboration with the School of Mathematical Sciences in UCD Sarah compared for the first time theoretical seafloor pressures calculated from various sea surface conditions to measured seafloor pressures, recorded by a tsunameter deployed off the Southwest coast of Ireland.

Based in the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies Sarah is currently working on developing a seafloor pressure map off the West coast of Ireland based on sea surface conditions. She is continuing work on further understanding the generation mechanisms of microseisms and is working on locating and characterising sources of these low frequency signals in field and numerical tests