OBS development and data analysis in Taiwan

Since 1991 there have been various types of ocean bottom seismometers (OBS) deployed in the waters around Taiwan with different scientific goals. A few years of experiences taught us that many aspects of the instruments can be improved without too much effort. These include extension of deployment time, extension of the recording bandwidth of a short period OBS, and more flexibly to accommodate scientific demands without instrumental overhaul. Scientists will not burden themselves by these tasks, and sending back the instrument to original manufactory for modifications is usually impractical budget-wise, in timeline, and for mission goals. It is thus necessary to develop a sustainable OBS program in Taiwan. Academia Sinica has been collaborating with Taiwan Ocean Research Institute (TORI) and National Sun Yat-sen University (NSYSU) to build a new short-period OBS which has passed a series of tests and have been deployed in the Okinawa trough, Bashi channel, east Korea offshore and on service in Huatung basin. This paper describes the design goal of this OBS, component specification, and reports the preliminary analyses of data and the future directions of instrument development. Keywords: Ocean bottom seismometer, OBS