An Amphibious Subduction Zone Earthquake Early Warning System for British Columbians — Introduction, Design and First Results

Date: 4/25/2019

Time: 06:00 PM

Room: Grand Ballroom

Introduction: Ocean Networks Canada (ONC), an initiative of the University of Victoria, has been implementing an Earthquake Early Warning (EEW) system starting in February 2016. The EEW project is a collaboration among government, academia, industry, and communities including: Natural Resources Canada, the BC Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure, the University of British Columbia, United States Geological Survey and the University of Washington.

Design: The EEW system incorporates land-based stations across Vancouver Island that consist of a combined system of an accelerometer and real-time Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS). Additionally, ONC operates subsea accelerometers that transect the Cascadia subduction zone from the continental slope into the deep-sea basin. For each of our sites we process raw observation data from the accelerometer and geodetic instruments, respectively, on-site and in real time. P-wave detection and parameterized displacement data are sent from remote stations to a central data centre, where the event correlator calculates earthquake epicenter location, origin time, and magnitude. For a successful event detection four sites are required to report the event as well as a converging epicenter solution. All of this must occur with very high standards for latency, reliability, and accuracy.

First Results: The first successful real-time earthquake detection was achieved from the Magnitude 6 Sovanco events on October, 22, 2018. The P-wave detections from 11 land-based sites and 5 subsea accelerometer sites were correlated and an earthquake was reported 44 seconds after the event occurred. The epicentre was reported with an accuracy of within 30 km.

An overview of the EEW system is provided in this presentation with preliminary results of earthquake event detections.

Presenting Author: Angela Schlesinger

Authors