PIDC - Seven years of global scale seismic event analysis

During January 1, 1995 and September 30, 2001, the Prototype International Data Centre (PIDC) located at the Center for Monitoring Research (CMR) in Arlington, VA, USA, continuously acquired and processed seismic, hydroacoustic, infrasound and radionuclide data from stations of the International Monitoring System (IMS) network defined in the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT). The global-scale data processing was performed in the first step by an automated expert system, resulting in automated event bulletins, followed by interactive analysis, resulting in reviewed event bulletins. The reviewed event bulletins produced and distributed on a daily basis by the PIDC contain 111,462 events located all over the world, and are based on data from over 170 seismic, hydroacoustic and infrasound (SHI) stations. The PIDC distributed raw data and products (automated and reviewed SHI bulletins, screened events bulletins, radionuclide data processing results, and different types of reports based on IMS data) to States Parties. All data receiving and forwarding was done via high quality dedicated communication links or Internet. The PIDC also collected and archived supplementary (Gamma) data containing event information based on locations by national or regional networks, contributed by the National Data Centres (NDC) in different States Parties. The software and procedures developed at the PIDC, as well as the archived data, were transferred to the International Data Centre (IDC) of the CTBT Organization, in Vienna, Austria, where the IMS data analysis is performed in present. The Romania NDC (in the National Institute for Earth Physics, Bucharest) actively cooperated with the PIDC, contributing with seismic data from station MLR (used in 1,746 PIDC events), as well as with 1,124 supplementary locations based on the national seismic bulletin. The seven years of continuous PIDC operation proved the concept of a unique global data centre in support of the monitoring needs of the CTBT, facilitated the IDC implementation, and also offered a very important source of raw and processed data to the scientific community. (authors)