Uncertainty estimates in broadband seismometer sensitivities using microseisms

The midband sensitivity of a seismic instrument is one of the fundamental parameters used in published station metadata. Any errors in this value can compromise amplitude estimates in otherwise high-quality data. To estimate an upper bound in the uncertainty of the midband sensitivity for modern bro...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of seismology 2015-04, Vol.19 (2), p.317-327
Main Authors: Ringler, A. T., Storm, T., Gee, L. S., Hutt, C. R., Wilson, D.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Amplitudes
Broadband
Earth and Environmental Science
Earth Sciences
Error detection
Estimates
Estimating techniques
Geophysics/Geodesy
Geotechnical Engineering & Applied Earth Sciences
Hydrogeology
Microseisms
Networks
Original Article
Seismic phenomena
Seismology
Sensitivity analysis
Structural Geology
Uncertainty
Upper bounds
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The midband sensitivity of a seismic instrument is one of the fundamental parameters used in published station metadata. Any errors in this value can compromise amplitude estimates in otherwise high-quality data. To estimate an upper bound in the uncertainty of the midband sensitivity for modern broadband instruments, we compare daily microseism (4- to 8-s period) amplitude ratios between the vertical components of colocated broadband sensors across the IRIS/USGS (network code IU) seismic network. We find that the mean of the 145,972 daily ratios used between 2002 and 2013 is 0.9895 with a standard deviation of 0.0231. This suggests that the ratio between instruments shows a small bias and considerable scatter. We also find that these ratios follow a standard normal distribution ( R 2  = 0.95442), which suggests that the midband sensitivity of an instrument has an error of no greater than ±6 % with a 99 % confidence interval. This gives an upper bound on the precision to which we know the sensitivity of a fielded instrument.
ISSN:1383-4649
1573-157X
DOI:10.1007/s10950-014-9467-7