Hydrocarbon microtremors interpreted as nonlinear oscillations driven by oceanic background waves

Characteristic low frequency seismic signals have been observed in areas where hydrocarbon reservoirs are present. A possible interpretation is the excitation of hydrocarbon related resonances. Basic models of an oscillating liquid filled porous medium are investigated. Synthetic spectra of the ab initio Navier–Stokes equations and of basic linear and nonlinear one-dimensional oscillators show characteristic features of measured spectra when oceanic background waves around 0.1–0.2 Hz are assumed to be the external driving force.