Monitoring Wind Turbine Vibrations for Structural and Subsurface Insights

Abstract Wind turbines generate continuous seismic signals that encode information about their structural integrity and surrounding environment. Utilizing 16 months of passive seismic data from two wind farms in Illinois, we analyze these turbine vibrations to evaluate both structural dynamics and near‐surface hydrogeology. We detected a precursory spectral anomaly 2 days before a turbine collapse, indicating initial structural tilting before visual signs emerged. Beyond structural health, temporal variations in turbine vibration frequencies serve as an empirical proxy for the critical zone's poroelastic state. By leveraging these frequency shifts, our model reconstructs first‐order spatial soil‐moisture patterns consistent with lithologic contrasts inferred from airborne electromagnetic data. Because this retrospective proof‐of‐concept relies on a single collapse event and noncollocated hydrological data, independent deployments with collocated sensors are required to assess generalizability. Nevertheless, these initial findings suggest wind energy infrastructure provides a promising dual‐purpose framework for structural monitoring and spatio‐temporal tracking of near‐surface hydrological processes.