Obspy, Web Services and Big Data – Using the Southern California Earthquake Data Center (SCEDC) and the Southern California Seismic Network (SCSN) Products and Services for Earthquake Research

Ellen Yu, Prabha Acharya, Aparna Bhaskaran, Shang-Lin Chen, Jennifer R. Andrews, Valerie Thomas, Egill Hauksson, & Robert W. Clayton

Published August 14, 2017, SCEC Contribution #7599, 2017 SCEC Annual Meeting Poster #077 (PDF)

Poster Image: 
The SCEDC archives continuous data from 10,578 data channels and 528 SCSN recorded stations in near real time. The SCEDC processes and archives an average of 16,000 earthquakes each year, forming an earthquake catalog dating back to 1932. The SCEDC provides public access to these earthquake parametric and waveform data through its website scedc.caltech.edu and through web services and client applications such as STP. This poster will describe the most significant developments at the SCEDC in the past year.

New data holdings:

• The SCEDC data holdings now include a double difference catalog (Hauksson et. al 2011) spanning 1981 through 2016 available via STP, and a focal mechanism catalog (Yang et al. 2011)

• To maximize data completeness, the SCEDC has implemented an automated gap detection and data retrieval mechanism for stations digitized by Quanterra loggers with an onsite data store. This is effective when data could not be telemetered in real time due to a telemetry outage and service is later resumed.

Improved Data Access:

• The SCEDC earthquake, waveform and metadata archives are all available through FDSN compliant web services and STP, and webSTP.

• The SCEDC’s alternate catalogs can now be accessed not only through the STP altloc command, but also through its FDSN compliant event web service. https://service.scedc.caltech.edu/fdsnws/event/1/

• In addition to its FDSN compliant StationXML web service, users of the SCEDC can now retrieve poles and zeros and SEED RESP files via its SACPZ and RESP web services.
RESP: https://service.scedc.caltech.edu/scedcws/resp/1/
SACPZ: https://service.scedc.caltech.edu/scedcws/sacpz/1/

• The SCEDC has improved its Polygon Search Interface. Users can now set a polygon of any number of points as a filter for their search. Users can also do an initial search, send the results to a map and then further refine the result set with a user determine polygon.

Key Words
earthquake catalogs, waveforms, web services, archive

Citation
Yu, E., Acharya, P., Bhaskaran, A., Chen, S., Andrews, J. R., Thomas, V., Hauksson, E., & Clayton, R. W. (2017, 08). Obspy, Web Services and Big Data – Using the Southern California Earthquake Data Center (SCEDC) and the Southern California Seismic Network (SCSN) Products and Services for Earthquake Research. Poster Presentation at 2017 SCEC Annual Meeting.


Related Projects & Working Groups
Seismology