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Report to the CISN Advisory and Steering Committeesfrom the CISN/PMG

6th Report: October 2003 to September 200415 September 2004

Program Management GroupEgill Hauksson, Caltech, (chair)

Lind Gee, UC BerkeleyDoug Given, USGS, Pasadena

David Oppenheimer, USGS, Menlo ParkTony Shakal, CGS, Sacramento

(With contributions from Rich Eisner (OES), Jim Goltz (OES), and Woody Savage (USGS, NSMP)

Table of ContentsIntroduction ________________________________________________________ 1Seismicity __________________________________________________________ 1Communications Backbone ____________________________________________ 2Seismic Stations Transmitting to Two Data Processing Centers_______________ 2Product Standardization ______________________________________________ 3ShakeMap Enhancements _____________________________________________ 4Engineering Data Center ______________________________________________ 4CISN DISPLAY _____________________________________________________ 5CISN Wed services ___________________________________________________ 5Outreach Activities___________________________________________________ 5Seismic Stations, Northern California Management Center __________________ 6Seismic Stations, Southern California Management Center __________________ 7Seismic Stations, Engineering Management Center_________________________ 7

IntroductionThe purpose of the PMG report is to provide theCISN Advisory and Steering Committees with anupdate on current CISN activities. To keep thereport short, we do not include routine operationand maintenance work. This report covers thelast three quarters of effort. The ‘After ActionReports’ of the San Simeon and San Diegoearthquakes were also produced by the PMGduring that time.

SeismicityFrom 10/1/2003-9/15/2004, the CISN processedover 31,281 earthquakes statewide. Many ofthese events are associated with the December 22M6.5 San Simeon earthquake (during the sametime period a year ago, the number ofearthquakes analyzed was just over 22,000).Northern California analysts are still working todeal with the backlog of events. As of June 30,the analysts were working to reduce the backlogof 9300 events since the mainshock (Figure 1).Almost all of the backlog occurs in the first threemonths of the sequence. In particular, the firstweek of the sequence presents a challenge to

process because aftershocks were occurring inrapid succession.

Figure 1 San Simeon mainshock rupture area (blue contours),moment tensor, and relocated aftershocks.

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Given the current staffing levels, it may takealmost 2 years to process all of the data.

The aftershock sequence continues to be active.Over 69 ShakeMaps were generated forearthquakes in the San Simeon area alone, mostrecently for an M4.0 on August 30th. The SanSimeon earthquake and the response of the CISNwas described in the PMG report (04/05/04)(www.cisn.org/docs/CISN_SanSimeon.pdf).

Other significant events include a small swarmin the Livermore area (largest magnitude M3.5)in January, a M4.4 near the Geysers on February18th, a M4.3 near Wheeler Ridge, an M4.3 nearSan Juan Bautista on March 16th, and an M4.2near King's Beach (Lake Tahoe) on June 3rd. Inaddition, the CISN recorded aM4.3 near ClearLake Reservoir on July 22 and a M4.0 near thePinnacles on August 30th.

The 2nd largest mainshock in the reporting periodwas a Mw5.0 on June 15, located offshore 44miles west-southwest of Coronado, near SanDiego. It was widely felt (10,542 CIIM feltreports) in the greater San Diego area, with a fewreports coming from as far away as Ventura &Twentynine Palms. Peak intensity was ModifiedMercalli IV.

Communications BackboneWe have installed the CISN data communicationbackbone to improve the capabilities of the CISNinstitutions to share data and to back each otherup in the case of a major earthquake. Thebackbone consists of five T1 links that form aring connecting Pasadena, Menlo Park, UCBerkeley, CGS, OES, and back to Pasadena.

As described in previous reports, the CISN ringis up and operational (Figure 2). It is being usedto transmit seismic waveform data andparametric data, including strong motionparameters, between the management centersand to distribute Shake-Maps to OES.

During this time period, the CISN performed atest to verify the fail-over and redundancycapabilities of the CISN ring. The goals of thetest were to 1) verify that if a single segment ofthe CISN ring fails, the backbone routers willdetect the outage in a timely fashion and willreroute traffic to all CISN sites around theremaining CISN ring segments, and 2) verifythat if a site is completely disconnected from theCISN ring, the backbone routers will detect theoutage in a timely fashion and will reroute traffic

to/from that site over the backup Internet tunnelsbetween the disconnected site and all other CISNsites. The test conducted demonstrated that theCISN routers and ring are performing accordingto design.

Unfortunately, the configuration of the CISNring is still incomplete at OES. The CISN OESrouters do NOT have public Internetconnections, so they have no Internet tunnelconnections. If the CISN T1 circuits were to godown at OES, OES would be completely isolatedfrom the CISN network and all CISN partners.This continues to be an issue of major concernbecause this lack in capability may prevent CISNfrom delivering ShakeMap to OES.

Figure 2. Diagram of the CISN backbone.

As part of an effort to increase robustness at theCISN centers, and to comply with computernetwork security guidelines, the CISN partnershave formed a security committee that includesmembership from OES.

Seismic Stations Transmitting to Two DataProcessing CentersAs part of the TriNet project, CGS andCaltech/USGS Pasadena implemented dual datatransmission from several CGS seismic stationsin southern California, as a step to increaserobustness. One copy of the data is sent to CGSin Sacramento while the second copy is sent toPasadena. As part of CISN, this mode of datasharing, by having 15 southern Californiastations send data to both Pasadena and UCBerkeley and 15 northern California stationssend data directly to UC Berkeley and Pasadena,

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has greatly enhanced the robustness and backupcapabilities of CISN.

This task is almost complete and 35 dual feedstations are operational. In addition, three CGS

Figure 3. Diagram illustrating dual station data feeds toimprove robustness.

stations are being shifted to dual feed, with asecond data stream going to the Pasadena center.These stations located off the coast, nearoffshore platforms near Newport Beach, Oxnard,and Pt. Arguello, are being brought online withdual feeds. Being off the coast, they bring animportant additional dimension for locatingevents in the offshore fault systems in southernCalifornia.

Product StandardizationA major goal of CISN is product standardizationto ensure that products mean the same across thestate. In particular, this includes hypocenters,magnitudes, focal mechanisms, and ShakeMaps.

The CISN is working on several fronts todevelop a statewide processing system and tostandardize and improve the earthquakemonitoring systems.

After extensive testing, we have produced aconfiguration for integrated statewide detectionand location of earthquakes that works well. Forexample, the system performed well for the SanSimeon sequence.

Work to standardize magnitudes has been goingon in several areas. A draft magnitude reporting

hierarchy (order of preferred magnitudes) hasbeen established. However, details about whenMw will be reported are still being determined.

Efforts to determine a unified set of ML stationadjustments and a statewide attenuationrelationship are underway, but have beencomplicated by the observation that there is asystematic difference between the MLs estimatedby Berkeley and Caltech for the sameearthquakes. The difference is on the order of0.14 magnitude units, with the Berkeleymagnitudes larger than the Caltech magnitudes.A number of tests are underway to understandthis discrepancy.

In the meantime, the NCMC has implementedthe software developed in southern Californiaunder the TriNet project to compute continuousamplitudes. As part of the implementation ofthis system in northern California, we havedeveloped the tools to allow center-centerexchange of the continuous amplitude timeseries. At present, test systems are running atUSGS Menlo Park and Berkeley to produce thecontinuous amplitude data, and a system atBerkeley to use the data for local magnitudes andground motion parameters.

A third area of the development is themodification of the software to compute codamagnitudes (Md). Work is currently underwayto modify the post-processing software packagedeveloped in southern California, to providecoda magnitude capabilities. This is animportant extension for northern California,where the distribution of broadband stations issparse.

In the fall of 2003, the CISN metadata workinggroup proposed a plan for sharing stationinformation between the Northern and SouthernCalifornia Management Centers, based ondatabase replication. The plan is currently beingimplemented using a small number of databasetables and the preliminary results indicate thatthis is a robust method for exchanging metadata.

More recently, the metadata working groupdeveloped a model for exchanging stationinformation between the Engineering DataManagement Center (EDC) and theNorthern/Southern California ManagementCenters. Under this plan, the EDC will generate"dataless" V0 files which contain the necessarystation information but no waveform data. TheNorthern California Management Center is

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currently working on software to process thedataless V0 files to populate the database.

The NCSN completed the project to generatemetadata for all of the waveforms archived at theNCEDC for the period 1984-present. NCEDCstaff have populated the database with thisinformation and it is now possible to obtain fullSEED volumes for NCSN data.

The CISN adopted a standard for the use of"location" codes (part of the Standard for theExchange of Earthquake Data (SEED)nomenclature to describe a time series based onnetwork-station-channel-location) in the late fallof 2003. Over the past few months, USGS andUC Berkeley developers have been working tomodify the Earthworm software to support theuse of location codes. This effort is nearlycomplete and the centers are working on a planto begin migration to the modified codes.

Over the last nine months, the SouthernCalifornia Management Center (SCMC) hasimproved and enhanced software developedunder TriNet to facilitate its use in CISN.Commercial Oracle interface software, calledRoguewave, has been replaced with an open-source library called OTL. Similarly, acommercial message passing software system,called SmartSockets, is being replaced with asystem called ‘CISN Messaging System’ thatbenefits from the message passing systemsdeveloped for CISN Display.

ShakeMap EnhancementsA high priority of CISN is to improve dataavailability and to improve the distribution ofShakeMap to ensure that it is available followinga major earthquake.

All three centers have installed and are using thelatest version of the ShakeMap software.Although most of the changes introduced byV3.0 were "under the hood", a few of thechanges (such as compression of files fordownloading) did create problems for a fewusers. New ShakeMap computers were installedat the USGS Menlo Park and Caltech/USGSPasadena, which has significantly improved thespeed of the ShakeMap generation. As of July,the NCMC and SCMC are now pushingShakeMaps to a ShakeCast server located insouthern California.

As a result of issues raised by the San Simeonearthquake, the CISN ShakeMap working group

has a number of issues on its plate, includingefforts to quantify the uncertainties in ShakeMapas well as to address issues such as notificationwhen ShakeMaps are updated. The workinggroup is also discussing issues such as biasdetermination and map resizing as well asworking to standardize the ShakeMapconfigurations at the three centers.

Engineering Data CenterThe CISN Engineering Data Center hasresponsibility for producing engineering dataproducts and distributing them to theengineering community.

Communication between the Engineering DataCenter in Sacramento and the Southern DataCenter in Pasadena has now been shifted overcompletely to the T-1 ring. As part of thisdevelopment, the EDC has shifted all of itsinternal network communications, developedunder TriNet, from serial to Ethernetcommunications. Speed and robustness isimproved throughout.

The EDC has had an extensive review performedof the security vulnerabilities of the center,located at CGS in Sacramento. Several itemswere identified, some simple and some morecomplex, that will bring it into compliance withState guidelines, as well as reduce its already-low vulnerability. These necessary changes andequipment purchases will be completed duringthe 2004-2005 fiscal year.

The EDC incorporates contributions from theCISN partners, and in particular the CGS SMIPand USGS NSMP centers. To improve theNSMP center, planning and development havebegun for modernizing the strong-motionprocessing and analysis system. The objectivesare to reduce personnel time needed for routinerecord processing and state-of-health monitoring;improve processing, storage, and web access ofengineering strong-motion data and associatedmetadata for ANSS; and to assure compliancewith USGS IT security requirements and otherANSS and CISN standards. When completed,the system will improve the speed of providingNSMP data to the CISN EDC, and will providesimilar service and support to the other regionsof ANSS. The first component of the system, aninteractive processing and analysis workstation,will begin beta testing in October 2004, and willinterface with the existing data file structure ofNSMP. Additional modules will be designed

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and developed during the coming year. Fundingfor this project is provided by ANSS.

CISN DISPLAYThe CISN is developing CISN Display to providestatewide real-time earthquake information. TheCISN Display is an integrated 24/7 Web-enabledearthquake notification system. The applicationprovides users with real-time seismicity, andfollowing a large earthquake, will automaticallymake available other earthquake hazardsinformation such as ShakeMap.

The CISN Display continues to be beta testedand has undergone several refinements inanticipation of an October, 2004 release ofversion 1.0, including streamlined user featuresand various bug fixes. Some of the new featuresinclude automatic removal of old downloadedShakeMap data files, zoom-scale view options tolocation layers, and a product-message cache tohandle product messages that arrive before theirassociated event message. Other recentimprovements include error-handling when filesfor configured layers are missing, modificationof product-buttons widths to prevent“ShakeMap” button label from getting truncatedon some systems, and ShakeMap auto-downloadimprovements. Special new features includeuser-configurable display of product-buttons thatcan highlight products of interest like Tsunamiwarnings or ShakeMaps, ShakeMap-stationslayer download, and automatic HAZUS-filesdownload. CISN Display now can displayglobal earthquakes on top of layers of all thecontinents and global cities.

CISN Web servicesDesign and content of www.cisn.org and otherCISN Web sites continues to evolve. The Web isan important tool for CISN outreach as well asfor communication and documentation amongthe CISN partners.

There has been significant progress atwww.cisn.org in FY03/04. A year ago, theCISN shared the Web server at the NorthernCalifornia Earthquake Data Center. Today, twonew web servers, located at Berkeley andCaltech, support the site. The Web servers areset up so that the load is distributed betweenthem, providing improved access during times ofhigh demand. ShakeMaps are now serveddirectly from the CISN Web site, in addition tobeing available from several USGS Web serversand the CGS.

In early December, the CISN began offering asign-up for earthquake notifications by email.Although both northern and southern Californiahave offered individual sign-ups in the past, thenew service provides uniform notificationmessages for earthquakes of M3.5 and higher inCalifornia. In addition, users can sign up to benotified when ShakeMaps are generated.

Also in FY03/04, the CISN established a Website dedicated for emergency managers.Following a suggestion from the AdvisoryCommittee, we have designed a Web site toprovide personalized access to earthquakeinformation. Known as "myCISN", the Web siteis accessible at eoc.cisn.org. Users can create apersonalized view of earthquake information,selecting what types of information they want tosee as well as organizing the layout. Newfeatures include a section of user-selectedfavorite links. Access to the Web site is limitedto registered users in order to provide highlyreliable access.

At present, "myCISN" is a single Web serverlocated at UC Berkeley. However, modificationsto the database are underway to allow formultiple servers in the future. A secondcomputer was purchased with FY03/04 fundsand will be installed in either Sacramento orsouthern California.

Efforts to enhance and improve access toengineering data products such as the InternetQuick Reports continued in the past year. IQRswere produced for 5 earthquakes and madeavailable through the Engineering Data Center atwww.cisn-edc.org.

The EDC continues to expand the engineeringdata available with the addition of data sets forimportant events that occurred prior to the startof CISN. The EDC has also incorporated usagetracking to as a mean to monitor and improveeffectiveness for users. Tracking shows anincreasing number of engineering users, bothfrom within California as well as design centersand universities outside of California, wheremany California buildings are designed andwhere many design engineers are trained.

Outreach ActivitiesCISN outreach efforts are led by OES, withmajor contributions from the CISN partners. Inthe past year, the CISN established an OutreachWorking Group.

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Several events commemorating the January 17,1994 Northridge earthquake were held. TheCalifornia Emergency Services Association,Southern Chapter in cooperation with theDepartment of Geology at the California StateUniversity, Northridge sponsored a seminar thatfocused on the current earthquake threat insouthern California. Caltech, USGS, CGS, andOES hosted a well-attended earthquake expo onthe campus of Caltech on January 17 thatattracted over 3,000 people who viewed exhibitsand films, heard seminar speakers, and receivedliterature on earthquake preparedness and homehazard mitigation.

During this year, OES and the USGScollaborated in producing several ShakeMap-HAZUS earthquake scenarios for localgovernments and one university. All scenariosincluded ShakeMap and HAZUS loss estimatesthat were organized into a presentation forexercise participants, poster sized maps for theactual exercises and technical assistance.

In addition to the earthquake exercise scenarios,other efforts are underway to promote the use ofShakeMap. An instructional video is beingfinalized for promoting the use of ShakeMapamong TV journalists in reporting an earthquake.

After the Keilis-Borok earthquake prediction wasreleased in early January, there were a number ofactivities involving CISN organizations to assistlocal government and the private sector inunderstanding the prediction. Question andanswer pages were posted on all CISNorganizational websites, including the CISNwebsite, several presentations were made to localgovernment emergency managers and electedofficials.

The Outreach Working Group has developed adraft plan for coordinated activities related toCISN products. The Working Group has beenworking with representatives of ANSS outreachto develop a brochure for CISN as a region ofANSS. Additional materials have beendeveloped to support the transfer of CISNDisplay to users. CISN Outreach has beenactively involved in recent revisions to thepopular pamphlet entitled “Putting Down Rootsin Earthquake Country.”

Seismic Stations, Upgrades and NewDeploymentsEach of the CISN partners has been involved inthe deployment and/or upgrade of seismic

instrumentation. These efforts are described interms of the activities of the three managementcenters.Northern California Management CenterThe Berkeley Seismological Laboratory (BSL)completed the installation of the seismic stationMNRC in the past year. Although the physicalinstallation of the station was completed at theend of FY02/03, the telemetry installation wasnot completed until this spring. Because of thesite's remote location, a multi-hop radio link wasneeded to bring the data out and into the SBCframe-relay network at Napa. The BSL beganinstallation of the GASB site in June. This site isa collaborative effort between the CISN and theCREST project. The vault and the pier havebeen constructed. The BSL is planning to beginthe installation of a site at Marconi this fall. Thissite will be a CISN/NSN/IRIS collaboration.

Although installations of new UCB stations aretaking place, combination of factors has left theBSL with a field staff of two engineers, reducedfrom six in the spring of 2003. As a result of thisreduction, maintenance work is often beingdelayed.

During the first 9 months of FY 2004, the NCSNcontinued installation of ANSS stations in theSan Francisco Bay area between Calistoga andsouth San Jose. Thirteen new urban sites withtri-axial accelerometers and continuous digitalcommunications were installed primarily in firestations. The NCSN installed or upgraded fiveregional stations in the Bay area to digital with4-channel capability (a tri-axial accelerometerand a single-component vertical seismometer).The NCSN also upgraded analog equipment attwo stations near Parkfield to digital dataloggerswith triaxial broadband and strong motionsensors.

The NCSN converted the telecommunications atthe analog microwave site at Williams Hill in theSanta Lucia range to digital via satellite. TheNCSN also completed a similar conversion at itsanalog microwave site at Geyser Peak, but thisdigital data is now transmitted to Menlo Park viadigital microwave telemetry. It also completedthe conversion of data recorded by the CaliforniaDepartment of Water Resources from analog todigital and DWR transmits the data via privateFrameRelay circuits to Menlo Park. Work wasnearly completed on a similar conversion forseismic data recorded at the Lawrence LivermoreNational Labs, but this data will be sent via theInternet.

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Southern California Management CenterWe continue to improve data quality fromexisting sites through equipment upgrades or insome cases by relocating the stations. Theequipment upgrades, may consist of new powersystems, new dataloggers, new sensors, orimproved data communications. In the last 12months we have relocated the following sites.The Salton Sea Wildlife station (SSW) near thesouth end of the Salton Sea was moved a fewmiles to the north to (RXH) Rock Hill. On thenorth shore of the Salton Sea, the station (NSS)was moved approximately 1000 ft, within thesame cluster of buildings) and is now referred toas (NSS2). The station in the middle of EdwardsAir Force Base (EDW) was moved 2 miles to thewest to a new site with the code EDW2. Thestation at Wheeler Ridge (WER) in the southernSan Joaquin Valley was moved to Arvin (ARV)on the Tehachapi Ranch. Similarly, the stationJoshua Ridge (JRC), near Coso in easternCalifornia, was moved about 0.5 miles and isnow referred to as (JRC2). Offshore, the stationon Santa Cruz Island (SCZ) was moved awayfrom nearby buildings and is now referred to asSCZ2.

Engineering Data CenterThe CGS SMIP program continues to upgradestations from analog film instruments to moderndigital stations, with communication whenpossible. Being done cooperatively with thebase SMIP projects, this will provide asubstantial increase in the number of stationsproviding data in a rapid enough time frame foruse by ShakeMap. Over 25 stations wereupgraded during this period. The gaps in theoverall CISN network coverage are stillextensive, but some important progress is beingmade.

In cooperation with a NSF-NEES project,ANSS/NSMP provided funds to procure a 12-channel digital recorder for installation at the siteof the downhole liquefaction array at theWildlife Refuge site in the Imperial Valley torecord both accelerometers and piezometers.

New digital instrumentation has been or is beinginstalled to replace analog instrumentation inseveral structures. In cooperation with the U. S.Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), 30-year-old analog systems at ten VA hospitals withinthe CISN region were upgraded to provide bothstructural and reference data. These installationsare located in Fresno, Livermore, Loma Linda,Los Angeles (Brentwood, Sepulveda, andWadsworth), Menlo Park, Palo Alto, San Diego,

and San Francisco. Also, new digital 24-channel systems were installed in a 33-storyoffice tower on Wilshire Boulevard, LosAngeles, and a 7-story office building inNorwalk. The reference station at the 5-storySan Bernardino County Services building wasalso upgraded.

Near-real-time accelerographs have beenpurchased with ANSS funding and are beinginstalled at new reference stations at the CityHall in Berkeley and at the Channing Houseretirement facility in Palo Alto. The structureswere previously instrumented using ANSSfunding.

ANSS funding has been provided to purchasefour ground response accelerographs and addaccelerometers at the surface above a boreholeinstrument adjacent to the Factor Building on theUCLA campus, to complement the existingstructural array. A USGS external grantsupplement has been awarded to UCLA to installand operate the instrumentation.

In a cooperative effort with the University ofCalifornia, Irvine (UCI), NSMP has purchased areal-time, 42-channel, structural/downholesystem to be installed at a new 4-story buildingcurrently under construction on the UCI campus.In a cooperative effort with the MetropolitanWater District of Southern California (MWD),NSMP is in the process of installing 6 strong-motion channels at the new Moreno Valley inletfeeder facility, located approximately 100 msouthwest of the San Jacinto fault. Threechannels have been installed at a reference site,and three additional channels will be installed onthe foundation of the main pipeline. New digitalaccelerographs are being installed by NSMP at 2additional MWD facilities this calendar year, atSkinner Dam and Live Oak Reservoir.

In a cooperative effort with the U. S. GeneralServices Administration, NSMP is in the processof instrumenting the new 8-story, FederalCourthouse at Fresno with a 30-channel, near-real-time system. The system should be on lineby the end of the calendar year. In addition tothe above structures with new instrumentation,nine structures with existing digitalinstrumentation were provided with telephoneservice to establish near-real-time data access.

In a cooperative effort with the California Officeof Statewide Health Planning and Development(OSHPD), the 2-story UCSD Hospital in La Jollawas instrumented with 16 sensors. In addition,

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the 4-story Kern County Hospital in Bakersfieldwas instrumented with 12 sensors, and the 2-story hospital in King City was instrumentedwith 12 sensors. The instrumentation for eachhospital includes a reference station on thegrounds that also serves as ground responsestation providing data for ShakeMap.generation.In addition, the new base-isolated St. Johnshospital in Santa Monica, replacing the buildingheavily damaged in Northridge, wasinstrumented with 18 sensors, also with afreefield station on the grounds.Los Angeles City Hall, retrofit after Northridgewith isolators and dampers, was instrumentedwith 27 sensors. At 32 stories and 450 feet tall,it is at this time the tallest base-isolated buildingin the U.S.

In cooperation with Caltrans, several major tollbridges were instrumented during this period.The new Carquinez Bridge on I-80, the firstsuspension bridge in California in 30 years, was

instrumented just prior to its official opening inNovember. The bridge, whose deck is asuspended steel box girder, has over 100 sensors,and includes a downhole array at one end. Inaddition, the west span of the Oakland – SanFrancisco Bay Bridge was instrumented with 80sensors as the retrofit was completed in thespring. Planning has been completed for theinstrumentation of the new east span, now underconstruction. The Golden Gate Bridge retrofitand strengthening is also underway, and thesections being strengthened are beinginstrumented with additional sensors by CSMIPin a cooperative effort with the Bridge District.A new freefield station at the north end of thebridge will also serve as a new input station forShakeMap.