Perspectives of cross correlation in seismic monitoring at the International Data Centre

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that cross correlation techniques significantly enhance seismic event detection and parameter estimation at the International Data Centre, reducing false alarms and workload while improving automatic and interactive processing accuracy.

Contribution

It introduces new cross correlation methods that improve detection thresholds, reliability, and processing efficiency for seismic monitoring at the IDC.

Findings

Over 90% of smaller REB events are automatically built.

False alarm rate is dramatically reduced.

Cross correlation improves both automatic and interactive seismic analysis.

Abstract

We demonstrate that several techniques based on cross correlation are able to significantly reduce the detection threshold of seismic sources worldwide and to improve the reliability of IDC arrivals by a more accurate estimation of their defining parameters. More than ninety per cent of smaller REB events can be built in automatic processing while completely fitting the REB event definition criteria. The rate of false alarms, as compared to the events rejected from the SEL3 in the current interactive processing, has also been dramatically reduced by several powerful filters. The principal filter is the difference of arrival times between the master events and newly built events at three or more primary stations, which should lie in a narrow range of a few seconds. Two effective pre-filters are f-k analysis and Fprob based on correlation traces instead of original waveforms. As a result, cross correlation may reduce the overall workload related to IDC interactive analysis and provide a precise tool for quality check for both arrivals and events. Some major improvements in automatic and interactive processing achieved by cross correlation are illustrated by an aftershock sequence of a large continental earthquake. Exploring this sequence, we describe schematically the next steps for the development of a processing pipeline parallel to the existing IDC one in order to improve the quality of the REB together with the reduction of the magnitude threshold. The current IDC processing pipeline should be focused on the events in areas without historical seismicity which are not properly covered by REB events.