UK earthquake monitoring 2003/2004

The aims of the Seismic Monitoring and Information Service are to develop and maintain a national database of seismic activity in the UK for use in seismic hazard assessment, and to provide near-immediate responses to the occurrence, or reported occurrence, of significant events. The British Geological Survey (BGS) has been charged with the task of operating and further developing a uniform network of seismograph stations throughout the UK in order to acquire standardised data on a long-term basis. The project is supported by a group of organisations under the chairmanship of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) with major financial input from the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). In the 15th year of the project four new broadband seismograph stations were established, with strong-motion accelerometers deployed at three of these sites. A further four stations were upgraded to high dynamic range data acquisition. All except one of the seismic sub-networks now use data loggers running under the QNX operating system. Ten portable data loggers were purchased, which can be rapidly deployed to record data from aftershock sequences and earthquake swarms and to study specific areas. All significant felt events and some others were reported rapidly to the Customer Group through seismic alerts sent by e-mail. The alerts were also published on the Internet (http://www.earthquakes.bgs.ac.uk). Monthly seismic bulletins were issued six weeks in arrears and, following revision, were compiled into an annual bulletin (Simpson, 2004). In all reporting areas, scheduled targets have been met or surpassed.