Toward Seismic Metamaterials: The METAFORET Project

We report on a seismic metamaterial experiment in a pine-tree forest environment where the dense collection of trees behaves as subwavelength coupled resonators for surface seismic waves. For the METAFORET experiment, more than 1000 seismic sensors were deployed over a 120 m x 120 m area to study the properties of the ambient and induced seismic wavefield that propagates in the ground and in trees. The goal of the experiment was to establish a link between seismic-relevant scales and microscale and mesoscale studies that pioneered the development of metamaterial physics in optics and acoustics. The first results of the METAFORET experiment show the presence of frequency band gaps for Rayleigh waves associated with compressional and flexural resonances of the trees, which confirms the strong influence that a dense collection of trees can have on the propagation of seismic waves.