Webinars - Detail

Seismic instrumentation has advanced profoundly in the past 50 years from when seismologists directly made measurements on paper records of waveforms. Now, a single broadband seismometer the size of a bowling ball can record a larger range of ground motions than the six sensors, each the size of a German Shepherd, used in the World Wide Standardized Seismographic Network in the 1970s. High dynamic range digitizers combined with the timing and telemetry capabilities of satellites have enabled seismic data from across the Earth to arrive at your desktop in almost real-time. Additionally, several software packages have been developed that allow seismologists to quickly process massive seismological data sets that would not have been feasible in the days of paper records. Ultimately, these technologies have enabled rapid characterization of earthquakes and improved our knowledge of earth structure and surface processes.  However, when using these technologies, we can begin to lose touch with how our data is produced and how subtle nuances in data collection and processing algorithms may be impacting our results.  In this webinar I will discuss how modern seismic data gets recorded, some of the current limitations in broadband seismology, as well as a few “gotchas” that can arise.