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International audience; Infragravity waves are long-period (25-250 s) ocean surface gravity waves generated in coastal zones through wave-wave interactions or oscillation of the breaking point. Most of the infragravity wave energy is trapped or dissipated near coastlines, but a small percentage escapes into the open oceans. The source of deep ocean infragravity waves is debated, specifically whether they come mostly from regions with strong source waves or from sites with particular morphologies/orientations. We correlate measurements of infragravity waves in the deep North Atlantic Ocean with infragravity wave generation parameters throughout the Atlantic Ocean to find the dominant sources of deep ocean infragravity wave energy in the North Atlantic Ocean. The deep ocean infragravity wave data are from a 5 year deployment of absolute pressure gauges west of the Azores islands (37°N, 35°W) and shorter data sets from seafloor tsunami gauges (DART buoys). Two main sources are identified: one off of the west coast of southern Europe and northern Africa (25°N-40°N) in northern hemisphere winter and the other off the west coast of equatorial Africa (the Gulf of Guinea) in southern hemisphere winter. These regions have relatively weak source waves and weak infragravity wave propagation paths to the main measurement site, indicating that that the site morphology/orientation dominates the creation of deep ocean infragravity waves. Both regions have also been identified as potential sources of global seismological noise, suggesting that the same mechanisms may be behind the generation of deep ocean infragravity waves and global seismological noise in the frequency band from 0.001 to 0.04 Hz.

International audience; The Vanuatu arc in the southwest Pacific Ocean is one of the world's most seismically active regions, with almost 39 magnitude 7+ earthquakes in the past 43 years. Convergence rates are around 90–120 mm/yr along most of the arc, but drop to 25–43 mm/yr in the central section, probably due to the subduction of the d'Entrecasteaux ridge. We characterize the slab geometry and tectonic state in this central section by analyzing data from a 10 month deployment of 30 seismometers over this section. We located more than 30,000 events (all less than magnitude 5.5), constructed an improved 1-D velocity model, calculated focal mechanisms and cluster geometries, and determined the 3-D geometry of the interplate seismogenic zone. The seismogenic zone has a shallow bulge in front of the d'Entrecasteaux ridge, which could be explained by the ridge's buoyancy contributing to the uplift of the fore-arc islands. The seismogenic zone extends to ~45 km depth, significantly below the 26–27 km depth of the fore-arc Moho, indicating that the upper mantle wedge is not significantly serpentinized, which is consistent with the relatively high thermal parameter of the subducting plate. The maximum width of the seismogenic zone is 80 km, indicating an upper earthquake magnitude limit of Mw 7.85 ± 0.4, assuming standard rupture zone aspect ratios. The data also reveal a double seismic zone, 20 to 30 km below the seismogenic zone, which is presumably caused by flexure of the downgoing plate.