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Historical Seismograms of the South Pacific - Preserving and Utilizing a Unique 100-Year Continuous Record of Earth Observations

Description: 

Historic seismograms in New Zealand (NZ) are maintained by GNS Science as part of the nationally significant Earthquake Information Database (EID). The EID holds a unique, non-repeatable record of New Zealand and South Pacific seismicity dating back over 100 years. These original paper seismograms were recorded from 1900 to 2005 and extend across all of mainland New Zealand. It also includes records from nearby South Pacific Islands to Antarctica and consists of over 1,000,000 individual records.

Preservation of these records is particularly critical in the South Pacific because researchers need to utilize all available information for understanding historic long cycle geological events. This is especially true in a place like NZ with a relatively short history of human occupation but frequent damaging geohazard events. Ongoing research into historic NZ seismicity requires a well-managed, curated, and publicly searchable collection of records. Recently GNS Science has embarked on efforts to catalog all predigital instrumental records, digitize published bulletins, scan significant earthquake collections, and publish a report documenting instrument metadata and deployment dates. This fundamental information about the collection is available online.

Increasing the utility of our paper seismogram collection and felt reports will enable future research and facilitate investment in digitizing records. We will summarize some challenges and successes during recent digitization work including a case study on a pair of tsunami earthquakes from 1947. This is to highlight our efforts to encourage investigations into historic seismicity by early career researchers and ultimately safeguard these records through their utilization.

Session: Legacy Seismic Data Collections: The Present State of and Future Outlook for Data from the Past

Type: Oral

Date: 4/18/2023

Presentation Time: 02:00 PM (local time)

Presenting Author: Paul Viskovic

Student Presenter: No

Invited Presentation: Yes

Authors