Workshop Teaching Materials
Retrieving Signals from a Noisy World: How seismometers work
This workshop will provide an overview of how seismic instrumentation works. It will overview how raw ground motion is sensed by a seismic sensor and then converted from digital counts to more tangible units of velocity or acceleration. We assume no prior knowledge of seismic instrumentation or data collection methods, making it ideal for graduate students or anyone interested in understanding how seismic data is recorded. The goal is to provide participants with basic understanding of how seismic data is recorded, how the instrumentation works, as well as possible pitfalls and complications that can arise in the process. By better understanding the physical and electronic limitations of seismic instruments, we hope that participants will have a better grasp on limitations of processing and interpreting the seismic data. Hands on exercises will help participants gain exposure to working with seismic data from the perspective of the instrument.
Participants will learn:
This git repository will contain the teaching materials for this course and will include a number of Python notebooks. We will add and update the content of this page as we get closer to the meeting.
Course agenda:
Retrieving Signals from a Noisy World: How Seismometers Work
When: August 9th, 2021, 9am-1pm MT
Where: At the zoom rooms (prior to the GAGE-SAGE workshop 2021)
Who: Robert Anthony (USGS), Akram Mostafanejad (PASSCAL), Adam Ringler (USGS) Python Jupyter Notebook, How to:
All the exercises are located and hosted on our GitHub repository. For this workshop, we will be running the python scripts and exercises from a cloud space called mybinder. Follow the instructions below:
Go to the Binder Link for Python Jupyter Notebook Exercises: Click here: https://mybinder.org/
Load the exercises from this Github Repository:
Welcome notes, Motivations, and Introductions (5 min)
Part I: Seismic sensors and their structure (Akram Mostafanejad, PASSCAL)
Part II: Seismic Instrument Response and Response Removal (Rob Anthony, USGS)
Introduction to Seismic Instrument Responses
Where to find Responses and how to read RESP files
Useful Links QSPA Station Information from IRIS http://ds.iris.edu/mda/IU/QSPA/
QSPA GS-13 Information http://ds.iris.edu/mda/IU/QSPA/85/HHZ/?starttime=2011-01-18T00:00:00&endtime=2599-12-31T23:59:59
QSPA GS-13 Response File http://service.iris.edu/irisws/resp/1/query?net=IU&sta=QSPA&loc=85&cha=HHZ&starttime=2011-01-18T00:00:00&endtime=2599-12-31T23:59:59
Exercise 1 on Response Removal (Python Jupyter Notebook ) In case you are interested in what generated this seismic signal: USGS Event Page for M 6.0 Balleny Islands Event https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us7000clt8/executive
Exercise 2 using NRL to make your own response and verify that you got it right! (Python Jupyter Notebook) Use Nominal Response Library (Thanks Mary Templeton!!!) for this exercise: http://ds.iris.edu/NRL/ Heres the earthquake youre looking at to verify your response: https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us7000bq10/executive
Part III: Instrument Specifications and why we should care (Adam Ringler, USGS)
Summary, wrap up, and Q&A (10 min) Feedback and evaluation (10 min)