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Recent Improvements to Strong Motion Monitoring in Canada

Session: Strong-Motion Data Processing and Dissemination: State-of-the-Art and Outlook

Type: Oral

Date: 4/23/2021

Presentation Time: 10:45 AM Pacific

Description: 

As of January, 2021, one of the most significant changes in strong motion monitoring in Canada since the first deployment of accelerometers in 1963, has been completed. This upgrade provides ~100 new strong motion instruments co-located with weak-motion instruments (6-component) at Canadian National Seismograph Network (CNSN) bedrock sites with an additional ~40 sites (mostly bedrock) having stand-alone strong motion instruments. The vast majority of these CNSN instruments are located in the high seismic hazard regions of Canada, especially Vancouver Island and southwest British Columbia, Haida Gwaii, and the St. Lawrence Valley region. Also, for the first time, strong motion instruments are located in northern Canada.

The Titan instruments are currently streaming data at 100 s/s and have a maximum 4 g recording level. The continuous records from the Titan sensors are available by request to the NRCan’s National Waveform Archive. To ensure high availability and resiliency, all seismic data are sent simultaneously to two data centers: one in Sidney, British Columbia and one in Ottawa, Ontario. The acquisition systems forward the data to an archive server, where the data are saved and available to the routine processing systems.

Strong motion waveform data and station metadata are freely available via a variety of methods.

In addition to these strong motion instruments there are an additional 350+ strong motion instruments across Canada (mostly in British Columbia) owned and operated by other organisations (e.g., B C Ministry of Transportation and Highways, BC Hydro, and more). These instruments are primarily located on soil sites.

With this recent CNSN upgrade, and the continued expansion of strong motion monitoring by other organisations across Canada, engineers will have access to more (and very valuable) strong motion data for Canadian earthquakes. This will lead to improved earthquake hazard models, improved seismic design for infrastructure, and safer communities.

Presenting Author: John F. Cassidy

Student Presenter: No

Authors