The RING and Seismic Network: Data Acquisition of Co-located Stations

The plate boundary between Africa and Eurasia represents an interesting geodynamical region characterized by a complex pattern of deformation. First-order scientific problems regarding the existence of rigid blocks within the plate boundary, the present-day activity of the Calabrian subduction zone and the modes of release of seismic deformation are still awaiting for a better understanding. To address these issues, the INGV (Istituto Nazionale Geofisica e Vulcanlogia) deployed a permanent, integrated and real-time monitoring GPS network (RING) all over Italy. RING is now constituted by about 120 stations. The CGPS sites, acquiring at 1Hz and 30s sampling rate, are integrated either with broad band or very broad band seismometers and accelerometers for an improved definition of the seismically active regions. Most of the sites are connected to the acquisition centre (located in Rome and duplicated in Grottaminarda) through a satellite system (VSAT), while the remaining sites transmit data by Internet and classical phone connections. The satellite data transmission and the integration with seismic instruments makes this network one of the most innovative CGPS networks in Europe. The heterogeneity of the installed instrumentation, the transmission types and the increasing number of stations needed a central monitoring and acquisition system. A central acquisition system has been developed in Grottaminarda in southern Italy. Regarding the seismic monitoring we chose to use the open source system Earthworm, developed by USGS, with which we store waveforms and implement automatic localization of the seismic events occurring in the area. As most of the GPS sites are acquired by means of Nanometrics satellite technology, we developed a specific software (GpsView), written in Java, to monitor the state of health of those CGPS. This software receives GPS data from NaqsServer (Nanometrics acquisition system) and outputs information about the sites (i.e. approx position, number of satellites) in real-time. Furthermore also a web-based application for the management of the data and the metadata relative to the GPS sites of the RING has been developed. We present (a) the existing and planned CGPS site distribution, (b) the technological description of the seismic and GPS data acquisitions in Grottaminarda INGV centre, and (c) the first results of CGPS data analysis.