L.S. Gee
C. R. Hutt
D.E. McNamara
A. T. Ringler
2010
<div class="article-section-wrapper js-article-section "><p>Recent concerns about time-dependent response changes in broadband seismometers have motivated the need for methods to monitor sensor health at Global Seismographic Network (GSN) stations. We present two new methods for monitoring temporal changes in data quality and instrument response transfer functions that are independent of Earth seismic velocity and attenuation models by comparing power levels against different baseline values.</p></div><div class="article-section-wrapper js-article-section "><p>Our methods can resolve changes in both horizontal and vertical components in a broad range of periods (∼0.05 to 1,000 seconds) in near real time. In this report, we compare our methods with existing techniques and demonstrate how to resolve instrument response changes in long-period data (>100 seconds) as well as in the microseism bands (5 to 20 seconds).</p></div><div class="article-section-wrapper js-article-section "><p>High quality broadband data recorded by the GSN are fundamental to characterizing a wide range of Earth science issues including: the size and rupture of large earthquakes (<i>e.g.</i>,<span> </span><a class="link link-ref link-reveal xref-bibr" data-open="ref12">Tsai<span> </span><i>et al.</i><span> </span>2005</a>); imaging the interior of the Earth (<i>e.g.</i>,<span> </span><a class="link link-ref link-reveal xref-bibr" data-open="ref13">Van der Hilst<span> </span><i>et al.</i><span> </span>1997</a>); tracking global climate variation (<a class="link link-ref link-reveal xref-bibr" data-open="ref2">Aster<span> </span><i>et al.</i><span> </span>2008</a>); and monitoring calving glaciers (Ekström<span> </span><i>et al.</i><a class="link link-ref link-reveal xref-bibr" data-open="ref5">2003</a>,<span> </span><a class="link link-ref link-reveal xref-bibr" data-open="ref6">2006a</a>).</p></div><div class="article-section-wrapper js-article-section "><p>Recent studies based on theoretical Earth models (<a class="link link-ref link-reveal xref-bibr" data-open="ref7">Ekström<span> </span><i>et al.</i><span> </span>2006b</a>;<span> </span><a class="link link-ref link-reveal xref-bibr" data-open="ref4">Davis and Berger 2007</a>) suggest that broadband seismometer gain levels can vary with time. This has also been confirmed, for the STS-1 sensor, experimentally (<a class="link link-ref link-reveal xref-bibr" data-open="ref14">Yuki and Ishihara 2002</a>). It therefore has become necessary to systematically check for temporal changes in amplitude at GSN stations. Many of these changes are frequency-dependent in nature and not<span> </span><i>a priori</i><span> </span>predictable (<a class="link link-ref link-reveal xref-bibr" data-open="ref7">Ekström<span> </span><i>et al.</i><span> </span>2006b</a>). Robust methods that can be applied to a large number of stations in a broad range of frequency bands are necessary.</p></div>
application/pdf
10.1785/gssrl.81.4.605
en
Seismological Society of America
Temporal variations in Global Seismic Stations ambient noise power levels
article