SeisPoolCH

The project provides funding for a modern, multi-instrument portable pool, SeisPoolCH, distributed across and shared between Swiss institutions, that enables groundbreaking research in earthquake and environmental seismology. It builds upon the existing instrument portfolios at each partner university, and allows the full renewal of the classic seismic instrument pool at ETHZ. It will create for the first time a shared pool for researchers across Switzerland. The new pool will include key new technologies that are revolutionising the field. Together, these instruments can achieve unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution and will allow Swiss institutions to remain at the forefront of observational seismology. Seismic field equipment has been available at ETH since 1995. The pool has been of pivotal importance for the funding of a large number of research projects including PhD theses, and numerous publications. More recently, partner Swiss Institutes at WSL, UNIL, UNIGE and UNINE have independently begun to acquire and manage seismic equipment, e.g. the 300+ nodal pool at UNIGE. Members and students of all these research groups are engaged in state-of-the-art international research in a competitive field that requires continued access to high quality equipment and to expert knowledge and tutoring in seismic fields otherwise not available in Switzerland. In 2010, the mobile pool at ETH was renewed, but after 14 years of intensive use, some of the existing equipment are technically outdated and no longer suitable for field use. Moreover, in the intervening years, a revolution in seismic instrumentation has taken place, with light, affordable, cableless nodal seismometers enabling quick deployment of unprecedented sensor numbers. Furthermore, digital acoustic sensing (DAS) now allows existing and new fibre cables to be transformed into a line of seismic receivers. Together, these instruments also allow recording of seismic signals over a wider frequency range. The proposed new instrument pool will consist of a shared set of modern, state-of-the-art instruments that allow continuation of the successful research program and development of new strategies for the deployment of portable sensors in the context of national and international projects.

The new instrument pool will allow the here federated partners to intensify research in the following areas:

1. multi-disciplinary studies of dynamic processes related to glacier and other mass movements (including sub-lacustrine);
2. investigations of structure and physical properties at multiple scales, from upper sedimentary layers, to the crust and the mantle, in different regions of the world;
3. high-precision monitoring of natural and induced microearthquakes;
4. rapid deployment of dense arrays following significant earthquakes for aftershock studies and evaluation of local shaking intensities,
5. monitoring of building stock and other critical civil infrastructure,
6. analysis of the full ambient wavefield for hazard/risk assessment and microzonation studies;
7. and imaging and monitoring the upper crust and potential reservoirs to support the energy transition.

All of these studies will benefit from a multi-instrument approach that  combines traditional sensors, nodes and DAS in innovative ways at different spatial scales, and sharing instruments will foster stronger scientific cooperation as well. The new technologies produce massive volumes of data, and require new data formats that will take many years to standardise. A Petabyte storage solution will be acquired to manage the new data. Data acquired with the new instrument pool will be integrated for all Swiss partners in the existing data processing facilities at Swiss Seismological Service (SED) to allow for easy data quality control and data archival. Data will be available to researchers through the European Integrated waveform Data Archive (EIDA).