MyShake + ShakeAlert: Integrating Smartphone Seismic Sensors with a Traditional Earthquake Early Warning Network
Abstract
MyShake is a smartphone citizen science application designed to both detect earthquake shaking and provide information about earthquakes to users. It uses an algorithm to process data from the onboard accelerometer, filtering anthropogenic noise in order to detect earthquake onsets in real time. Since October 2019, MyShake has also been delivering public earthquake early warning alerts generated by ShakeAlert as an element of the California Earthquake Early Warning System. MyShake's alert-delivery capability has created a substantial user base in the state of approximately 500,000 users. With so many devices running the app, the urban station density of the MyShake smartphone seismic network is significantly higher than that of the regional seismic networks that provide data to ShakeAlert. The goal of our research is to assess the potential of MyShake's own detection capabilities to augment the speed and accuracy of the ShakeAlert system, with a focus on the state of California where user density is greatest. We compare the rate and quality of earthquake detection by MyShake and ShakeAlert during past earthquakes in order to determine scenarios when incorporation of MyShake data could 1) speed up detection, providing citizens with more time to prepare, and/or 2) improve initial estimates of earthquake location and size, and thereby the accuracy of expected intensity maps. We explore the efficacy of different approaches to incorporating MyShake data to best improve ShakeAlert system.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2020
- Bibcode:
- 2020AGUFMS044...02P
- Keywords:
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- 7299 General or miscellaneous;
- SEISMOLOGY