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The accurate location of tectonic tremors helps improve understanding of their underlying physical processes. However, current location methods often do not statistically evaluate uncertainties to a satisfactory degree and do not account for potential biases due to subsurface structures not included in the model. To address these issues, we propose a novel three-step process for locating tectonic tremors. First, the measured time- and amplitude differences between station pairs are optimized to obtain station-specific relative time and amplitude measurements with uncertainty estimates. Secondly, the time– and amplitude–distance relationships in the optimized data are used to roughly estimate the propagation speed (i.e. shear wave velocity) and attenuation strength. Linear regression is applied to each event, and the resulting velocity and attenuation strength are used for quality control. Finally, the tremor location problem is formulated within a Bayesian framework where the model parameters include the source locations, local site delay/amplification factors, shear wave velocity and attenuation strength. The Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm is used to sample the posterior probability and is augmented by a parallel tempering scheme for an efficient global search. We tested the proposed method on ocean-bottom data indicating an intense episode of tectonic tremors in Kumano-nada within the Nankai Trough subduction zone. The results show that the range of the 95 per cent confidence interval is typically <7 km horizontally and <10 km vertically. A series of experiments with different inversion settings reveals that adopting amplitude data and site correction factors help reduce random error and systematic bias, respectively. Probabilistic sampling allows us to spatially map the probability of a tremor occurring at a given location. The probability map is used to identify lineaments of tremor sources, which provides insights into structural factors that favour tremor activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To obtain an internal S -wave velocity structure, we conducted a passive seismic campaign with 21 1-Hz seismometers on and around the Showa-Shinzan lava dome, which emerged during the 1943–1945 eruption of Usu Volcano, Japan. Before the campaign, we calibrated seismometers and found slight phase-response differences between seismometers of less than 1–2°. After the campaign, we extracted seismic wavefield by taking cross-correlations of vertical-component ambient noise records between seismic sites. We developed a new method to measure phase velocities of the Rayleigh wave automatically by assuming layered structure and finally obtained 1-D S -wave velocity models in summit, roof and base regions. The obtained S -wave velocity right beneath the intruded lava dome is higher than that in surrounding areas by a few tens of per cent down to a few hundred metres below sea level, indicating narrow but deep existence of the root of the lava dome. The obtained S -wave velocity at depths shallower than ∼50 m inside the lava dome in the summit area was ∼1 km s−1, significantly lower than that predicted from the density of  2.3 × 103 kg m−3 estimated in previous muon-radiography studies and a conventional scaling, indicating the effect of cracking in the lava dome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]