Earthquake monitoring and early warning

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Data from our equipment is used to advance human understanding of how the Earth's crust behaves. Our instrumentation is available in portable units with integrated data acquisition capability, suitable for short to medium term field deployment, such as for aftershock monitoring; or as real-time, permanent networks with rapid processing and communication capability such as EEW or tsunami early warning application.

Earthquake Early Warning

Earthquake early warning systems work by identifying the fast-moving P-wave that is released when an earthquake occurs. The non-destructive P-wave arrives anything up to around 90 seconds earlier than the secondary waves (S-waves) that are responsible for the destructive effect of the earthquake. Early warning monitoring systems are designed to recognise P-waves as soon as they arrive and then use the very small window before the S-waves arrive to raise alerts and/or trigger automated shut-down procedures.

Due to the incredibly short intervals between P-wave and S-wave arrivals, especially near the epicentre, the most critical aspect of an early warning system is the speed at which it can receive and process the p-wave signal and then transmit the data to a control centre or alert system.

Over the years at Güralp, we have developed increasingly more sophisticated digitisers, capable of delivering the low-latency data-processing and transmission required for effective early warning systems

Some examples of earthquake research that utilises data from our instruments include:
  • Seismic research - understanding fundamental mechanisms
  • Event detection and location - monitoring local, regional and global seismicity and aftershock monitoring
  • Earthquake Early Warning (EEW) - for civil and industrial applications as well as emergency response coordination
  • Seismic hazard management - earthquake monitoring as part of safety management plans
  • Induced and triggered Seismicity - differentiating between natural and man made events both for commercial and national security applications
  • Aftershock monitoring - information about smaller aftershocks can be used for a variety of purposes including research and emergency response coordination