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A Major Update to the Exotic Seismic Events Catalog: A Compilation of Seismogenic Mass Movements

We present an update to the collection of seismogenic mass movements that forms the basis of the Exotic Seismic Events Catalog (ESEC), doubling the number of events in the catalog from 121 to 242 while broadening the geographic distribution and range of event types. The ESEC is available online through IRIS’s searchable product depository or as a downloadable SQLite database from USGS ScienceBase. This update adds more instances of seismogenic landslides, debris flows, snow avalanches, outburst floods and lahars as well as some new event types: two mine collapses, a submarine landslide and a volcanic flank collapse. We also now incorporate infrasound detection. Whereas the first version of the catalog focused on mass movements located primarily in the Western United States and Canada, this update includes events from Europe and Pacific Islands. We only include events for which seismic data are openly available.

We provide both basic seismic information (e.g., station detections on different frequency bands, seismic data location, etc.) and ancillary data such as geometric measurements, references, photographs and satellite imagery. When available we use published values such as source location, drop height, runout distance and volume, and when not documented, we estimate values from satellite imagery or photographs. Events are categorized in terms of the quality of the ancillary data, and we provide estimates of uncertainty on parameters such as location and volume. This update increases the availability of seismogenic mass movement data to the community to promote research that betters our understanding of event dynamics and improves methods for exotic event detection, classification, and characterization. Future updates could allow for the incorporation of other exotic event types like blasts and glacial events. The ESEC has a mechanism for community members to contribute events to the collection, so we encourage other researchers to join in the effort.

Session: Things That Go Bump: Identifying and Characterizing Non-Earthquake Seismo-Acoustic Sources [Poster]

Type: Poster

Room: Evergreen Ballroom

Date: 4/20/2022

Presentation Time: 08:00 AM Pacific

Presenting Author: Kate E. Allstadt

Student Presenter: Yes

Additional Authors