Measuring the Performance of the Global Seismographic Network
Abstract
The Global Seismographic Network (GSN) is a 144-station, permanent network of state-of-the-art seismological and geophysical sensors and has been constructed and maintained through collaboration between IRIS, USGS, the University of California San Diego, and NSF in coordination with the scientific community. Distributed across all continents and on islands throughout the world's oceans, the network offers a core infrastructure of site agreements, power, and telemetry systems for hosting both seismological instrumentation as well as other geophysical sensors, including GPS, gravimeters, magnetometers, barographs, and meteorological instrumentation. Real- time telemetry is available at more than 93% of GSN sites through a diverse combination of satellite links, hubs, leased-lines, radios, and Internet. GSN cooperates with over 100 host organizations and seismic networks in 64 countries. Approximately 126 of these sites are operated and maintained through the USGS Albuquerque Seismological Laboratory and the IRIS/IDA group at the University of California at San Diego, while the remaining sites are operated by other agencies and hosts. Designed initially as a scientific network during a time when global telemetry was quite limited, original design goals of the network always included real- time telemetry. With the rapid advancement of global telecommunications, the GSN has become a valuable contributor to the global seismic monitoring community and now plays a critical role in earthquake and tsunami hazard real-time warning systems as well as a valuable part of the International Monitoring System of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Band Treaty Organization. As such, the mission of the GSN has expanded to include these very valuable monitoring functions. As the role of the GSN expands, it becomes more important to quantify performance of the network so that the monitoring communities may better understand the reliability of this network and plan their own missions around its use. With the complexity of the operations and maintenance relationships, heterogeneity of the telemetry links and distribution of the network operations, the establishment of standardized performance metrics for this network is a challenge. In this work, we present several different performance measurement techniques that look at data availability, quality, latency and some long-term changes in these metrics in an attempt to assess the performance and value of the GSN in a quantitative sense. Estimates of strengths and weaknesses in the GSN based on these metrics will be made in an attempt to better utilize the available funds the network has for operations and prioritize the use of these funds to meet the needs of the GSN users community.
- Publication:
-
AGU Spring Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- May 2007
- Bibcode:
- 2007AGUSM.S23A..02A
- Keywords:
-
- 7294 Seismic instruments and networks (0935;
- 3025)