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European Efforts for Legacy Seismograms Preservation and Use: The ESC WG on Seismological Legacy Data and the Seismostorm Project

Description: 

Pre-digital ground-motion recordings were mostly made with ink on white paper, scratching black-smoked paper, or light on photographic paper. While analog seismic records provide unique continuous observations from the last century, the majority of them are now stacked and archived in boxes, potentially vulnerable to physical decay and permanent loss. It is critical to scan and digitize those records in order to preserve them and eventually subject them to modern methods of analysis.
The ESC Working Group 02-12 “Preservation, valorization and analysis of seismological legacy data", is working on activities to improve the preservation and valorization of legacy seismograms and related documents. We discuss the current status of some of these activities, particularly an updated census for legacy seismological data in order to generate an updated inventory of such data preserved in Europe, of which we present the main elements and preliminary results. Its global expansion in the near future is expected.
The WG also works on stimulating new research using legacy seismograms, defining preservation methods and scanning standards, and improving methods for automatic digitization/vectorization. In that context, we also present the SeismoStorm project, a Belgium-funded project that connects seismology with legacy data and ocean climate science. A method for extracting microseismic ground-motion periods and amplitudes from paper seismograms was developed by first using image processing and machine learning to digitize seismic time series. The project focused on legacy data from Belgium's Royal Observatory to extract power spectral densities generated by major storms over the last century. These were compared to modeled microseism levels computed using a numerical ocean wave model. The results demonstrate how digitizing analog seismograms not only preserves scientific legacy but also allows for new research by bringing analog data into the digital age.

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: 02:15 PM (local time)

Presenting Author: Raphael S. M. De Plaen

Student Presenter: No

Invited Presentation: Yes

Authors