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The collection of earthquake testimonies (i.e., qualitative descriptions of felt shaking) is essential for macroseismic studies (i.e., studies gathering information on how strongly an earthquake was felt in different places), and when done rapidly and systematically, improves situational awareness and in turn can contribute to efficient emergency response. In this study, we present advances made in the collection of testimonies following earthquakes around the world using a thumbnail‐based questionnaire implemented on the European‐Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) smartphone app and its website compatible for mobile devices. In both instances, the questionnaire consists of a selection of thumbnails, each representing an intensity level of the European Macroseismic Scale 1998. We find that testimonies are collected faster, and in larger numbers, by way of thumbnail‐based questionnaires than by more traditional online questionnaires. Responses were received from all seismically active regions of our planet, suggesting that thumbnails overcome language barriers. We also observed that the app is not sufficient on its own, because the websites are the main source of testimonies when an earthquake strikes a region for the first time in a while; it is only for subsequent shocks that the app is widely used. Notably though, the speed of the collection of testimonies increases significantly when the app is used. We find that automated EMSC intensities as assigned by user‐specified thumbnails are, on average, well correlated with “Did You Feel It?” (DYFI) responses and with the three independently and manually derived macroseismic datasets, but there is a tendency for EMSC to be biased low with respect to DYFI at moderate and large intensities. We address this by proposing a simple adjustment that will be verified in future earthquakes. NRF (Natl Research Foundation, S’pore) MOE (Min. of Education, S’pore) Published version

We exploit the data from five seismic transects deployed across the Pyrenees to characterize the deep architecture of this collisional orogen. We map the main seismic interfaces beneath each transect by depth migration of P-to-S converted phases. The migrated sections, combined with the results of recent tomographic studies and with maps of Bouguer and isostatic anomalies, provide a coherent crustal-scale picture of the belt. In the Western Pyrenees, beneath the North Pyrenean Zone, a continuous band of high density/velocity material is found at a very shallow level (~10 km) beneath the Mauleon basin and near Saint-Gaudens. In the Western Pyrenees, we also find evidence for northward continental subduction of Iberian crust, down to 50–70 km depth. In the Eastern Pyrenees, these main structural features are not observed. The boundary between these two domains is near longitude 1.3 °E, where geological field studies document a major change in the structure of the Cretaceous rift system, and possibly a shift of its polarity, suggesting that the deep orogenic architecture of the Pyrenees is largely controlled by structural inheritance. The PYROPE (Pyrenean Observational Portable Experiment) project was supported by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) Blanc Programme (project PYROPE, ANR-09- BLAN-0229). We also acknowledge SISMOB, the French seismic mobile pool (a component of the RESIF consortium - http://seismology.resif.fr), for providing us with the seismological instrumentation for the temporary deployments. Field work has been also partially funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through Project MISTERIOS (CGL2013-48601-C2-2-R). Peer reviewed

Song Tranh 2 hydropower plant and the reservoir containing backed up water are located in the Quang Nam province (Central Vietnam). The region experiences unusual seismic activity related to the reservoir impoundment, with earthquakes of magnitude up to 4.7. In result of cooperation between the Institute of Geophysics, Vietnam Academy of Sciences and Technology and the Institute of Geophysics, Polish Academy of Sciences a seismic network has been built to facilitate seismic monitoring of the Song Tranh 2 area. The network, operating since August 2013, consists of 10 seismic stations. Here we show that the network is sufficient for advanced data processing. The first results of monitoring of the earthquake activity in Song Tranh 2 area in the period between 2012 and 2014, especially the completeness of catalogs, study and comparisons between water level and the seismic activity suggest direct connection between reservoir exploitation and anthropogenic seismicity.

During the last decades, the availability of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite missions, such as the ERS-1/2 and ENVISAT ones operating at C-band who have worked since 1992 to 2011, as well as the X-band COSMOSkyMed and TerraSAR-X constellations, up to the brand new Sentinel-1 mission, have strongly contributed to SAR data diffusion and popularity in the generation of different studies at different scales and in different research fields. One of the most popular SAR technique is the one referred to as Differential SAR Interferometry (DInSAR), which allows measuring with centimeter accuracy the Earth's surface deformation entity related to both natural and man-made hazards. Nowadays, with the increasing of SAR data availability provided by Sentinel-1 constellation of Copernicus European Program, which is composed by two twin satellites operating in C-band since 2014 and 2016, with a repeat pass of 6 days and with a global (i.e. worldwide) data acquisition policy, the SAR EO scenario is becoming more and more operational, thus mainly providing support for natural hazards monitoring. This allows, in theory, and disposing of sufficient computing power, the EO community to monitor, for instance, the deformation of every volcano or to obtain co-seismic displacement maps in a short time frame and anywhere in the world. Accordingly, in this work, we present a fully automatic and fast processing service for the generation of co-seismic displacement maps by using Sentinel-1 data. The implemented system is completely unsupervised and is triggered by the all significant (i.e. larger than a defined magnitude) seismic event registered by the online catalog as those provided by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology of Italy (INGV). The service has been specifically designed to operate for Civil Protection purposes. The generated DInSAR measurements are made available to the geoscience community through the EPOS Research Infrastructure and they will contribute to the creation of a global database of co-seismic displacement maps. Finally, it is worth noting that the developed system relies on widely common IT methods and protocols and is not specifically tied to a defined computing architecture, thus implying its portability, in view also of the European Commission Data and Information Access Services (DIAS) where satellite data (mainly Sentinel) and processing facilities are co-located to reduce the data transfer time during their processing.

A very unusual time-space distribution of seismicity accompanying coal exploitation has been observed in a Polish mine. The earthquakes did not follow the depth of mining but exhibited changing depths from far below to close to the mined seam. One of the deep events which occurred at close epicentral distance to the active mining front was ML3.7 event. This paper presents the study of possible coupling of natural, human-induced and coseismic stresses in a longwall coal mining environment. The full moment tensor solution showed that the strong earthquake occurred on an almost vertical plane consistent with approximate strike of local tectonic structure. The signal correlation analysis revealed some highly correlated pairs within both deep and shallow event groups. To evaluate inducing factor of ongoing and past exploitation, geomechanical modelling of its influence on strain and stress at the target depth has been performed. The results exhibited a changing vertical stress regime, which might have promoted failure on preexisting, almost vertical planes of weakness. The earthquakes' rate variation in time showed no increase in activity right after the occurrence of ML3.7 event. The P-S-wave spectra corner frequency ratio had an average of 1.0, suggesting slow rupture. However, the Coulomb stress change analysis showed that the magnitude of stress changes due to coseismic slip of ML3.7 event at the hypocentral depth is of the same order as the stress changes caused by mining. Thus, the distribution of seismicity at this level could have been driven by both exploitation and coseismic stresses. Moreover, the seismicity which occurred within first few weeks after ML3.7 event, followed positive stress changes. All the obtained results let us prove that the ML3.7 event was a tectonic earthquake triggered by ongoing exploitation and that the distribution of following seismicity was affected by coupled natural, exploitation-induced and coseismic stresses.

Virtual Research Environments (VREs), also known as science gateways or virtual laboratories, assist researchers in data science by integrating tools for data discovery, data retrieval, workflow management and researcher collaboration, often coupled with a specific computing infrastructure. Recently, the push for better open data science has led to the creation of a variety of dedicated research infrastructures (RIs) that gather data and provide services to different research communities, all of which can be used independently of any specific VRE. There is therefore a need for generic VREs that can be coupled with the resources of many different RIs simultaneously, easily customised to the needs of specific communities. The resource metadata produced by these RIs rarely all adhere to any one standard or vocabulary however, making it difficult to search and discover resources independently of their providers without some translation into a common framework. Cross-RI search can be expedited by using mapping services that harvest RI-published metadata to build unified resource catalogues, but the development and operation of such services pose a number of challenges. In this paper, we discuss some of these challenges and look specifically at the VRE4EIC Metadata Portal, which uses X3ML mappings to build a single catalogue for describing data products and other resources provided by multiple RIs. The Metadata Portal was built in accordance to the e-VRE Reference Architecture, a microservice-based architecture for generic modular VREs, and uses the CERIF standard to structure its catalogued metadata. We consider the extent to which it addresses the challenges of cross-RI search, particularly in the environmental and earth science domain, and how it can be further augmented, for example to take advantage of linked vocabularies to provide more intelligent semantic search across multiple domains of discourse.

In a move to give credit where it's due, the International Federation of Digital Seismograph Networks will link digital object identifiers to data from seismic networks and project deployments.

Mining, water-reservoir impoundment, underground gas storage, geothermal energy exploitation and hydrocarbon extraction have the potential to cause rock deformation and earthquakes, which may be hazardous for people, infrastructure and the environment. Restricted access to data constitutes a barrier to assessing and mitigating the associated hazards. Thematic Core Service Anthropogenic Hazards (TCS AH) of the European Plate Observing System (EPOS) provides a novel e-research infrastructure. The core of this infrastructure, the IS-EPOS Platform (tcs.ah-epos.eu) connected to international data storage nodes offers open access to large grouped datasets (here termed episodes), comprising geoscientific and associated data from industrial activity along with a large set of embedded applications for their efficient data processing, analysis and visualization. The novel team-working features of the IS-EPOS Platform facilitate collaborative and interdisciplinary scientific research, public understanding of science, citizen science applications, knowledge dissemination, data-informed policy-making and the teaching of anthropogenic hazards related to georesource exploitation. TCS AH is one of 10 thematic core services forming EPOS, a solid earth science European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) (www.epos-ip.org).

EPOS – the European Plate Observing System – is the ESFRI infrastructure serving the need of the solid Earth science community at large. The EPOS mission is to create a single sustainable, and distributed infrastructure that integrates the diverse European Research Infrastructures for solid Earth science under a common framework. Thematic Core Services (TCS) and Integrated Core Services (Central Hub, ICS-C and Distributed, ICS-D) are key elements, together with NRIs (National Research Infrastructures), in the EPOS architecture. Following the preparatory phase, EPOS has initiated formal steps to adopt an ERIC legal framework (European Research Infrastructure Consortium). The statutory seat of EPOS will be in Rome, Italy, while the ICS-C will be jointly operated by France, UK and Denmark. The TCS planned so far cover: seismology, near-fault observatories, GNSS data and products, volcano observations, satellite data, geomagnetic observations, anthropogenic hazards, geological information modelling, multiscale laboratories and geo-energy test beds for low carbon energy. In the ERIC process, EPOS and all its services must achieve sustainability from a legal, governance, financial, and technical point of view, as well as full harmonization with national infrastructure roadmaps. As EPOS is a distributed infrastructure, the TCSs have to be linked to the future EPOS ERIC from legal and governance perspectives. For this purpose the TCSs have started to organize themselves as consortia and negotiate agreements to define the roles of the different actors in the consortium as well as their commitment to contribute to the EPOS activities. The link to the EPOS ERIC shall be made by service agreements of dedicated Service Providers. A common EPOS data policy has also been developed, based on the general principles of Open Access and paying careful attention to licensing issues, quality control, and intellectual property rights, which shall apply to the data, data products, software and services (DDSS) accessible through EPOS. From a financial standpoint, EPOS elaborated common guidelines for all institutions providing services, and selected a costing model and funding approach which foresees a mixed support of the services via national contributions and ERIC membership fees. In the EPOS multi-disciplinary environment, harmonization and integration are required at different levels and with a variety of different stakeholders; to this purpose, a Service Coordination Board (SCB) and technical Harmonization Groups (HGs) were established to develop the EPOS metadata standards with the EPOS Integrated Central Services, and to harmonize data and product standards with other projects at European and international level, including e.g. ENVRI+, EUDAT and EarthCube (US). Geophysical Research Abstracts, 19 ISSN:1607-7962 ISSN:1029-7006