This grant supports continued operations of the International Seismological Centre (ISC). The ISC is internationally supported and the requested budget is based on the relative GDPs of sponsor countries with funding from the U.S. NSF estimated at 21.4% of the ISC operational costs over the next four years. NSF support will provide for continued production of the ISC Bulletin - the definitive global summary of earthquake hypocentres, magnitudes and source mechanisms, as well as station arrival times, amplitudes and other measurements with links to original waveforms where available. The international support and non-governmental status of the ISC allows the Centre to collect and freely distribute data from otherwise unavailable sources. Specific tasks to be supported include: 1) collection, automatic merging and association of reported bulletin data from networks and data centers around the world, including NEIC, EMSC, USArray, JMA etc; 2) manual review of hypocentres, phase readings, and related data for events simultaneously reported by several networks approximately of magnitude 3.5 and above; 3) distribution of the ISC Bulletin by means of the web-search, ftp, CD-ROMs and the printed ISC Bulletin Summary; 4) maintenance and enhancement of the International Seismograph Station Registry jointly with World Data Center for Seismology, Denver (USGS) and in coordination with the Federation of Digital Seismograph Networks (FDSN); and 5) establishment of a ISC database and web facilities mirror at IRIS DMC; 6) re-production of the entire ISC Bulletin for 1960-2012 using a newly developed location algorithm. The ISC Bulletin supports the global seismology community for fundamental research on Earth structure, earthquake physics and earthquake hazards mitigation. The Bulletin also aids in monitoring of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
***
(ISC) from July 2010 to June 2014. The objective was to continue the production of the ISC Bulletin - the definitive global summary of earthquake and other natural and anthropogenic seismic events. These operations are based on a unique, worldwide collaboration with ~130 seismic networks worldwide thanks to the strictly non-governmental and truly international status of the ISC. This status allows ISC to collect and freely distribute data from otherwise unavailable sources. The intellectual merit For 50 years, the ISC Bulletin has provided the most comprehensive and complete account of global seismicity. The Bulletin includes nearly three times as many earthquakes as any other global summary and, for comparable earthquakes, initial phase times from more stations as well as more amplitudes and more secondary phases. This project has allowed the ISC to maintain and further develop this mission to assist researchers in understanding Earth’s dynamic systems and investigating the New Research Opportunities in the Earth Sciences as seen by the NSF and National Research Council. As an essential starting point for a large proportion of all research relating to earthquakes on a global scale, the impact of the ISC on seismology is unique. The ISC Bulletin is the principal data source for hundreds of research articles each year, and many more articles depend on the ISC data to select events or stations to be used, or to establish the seismotectonic setting. The types of studies for which the ISC data are virtually indispensable include seismotectonics, seismic tomography, seismic hazard analysis, earthquake source physics, earthquake forecasting, and explosion monitoring. Even for research that depends primarily on processing digital waveforms, the Bulletin provides an invaluable index for acquiring waveform data. With the current tendency of other centres such as NEIC and EMSC to focus their efforts on rapid determinations, the value of the ISC for seismological research is further enhanced. The broader impact The broader impact of the ISC operations is through basic and applied research based on the ISC products, ultimately including mitigation of earthquake disasters through planning reliant on realistic seismic hazard analysis and monitoring of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The ISC products serve as unique, valuable tools for education in geophysics, that routinely provide training to young seismologists, especially those from developing countries. The ISC further broadens opportunities by enabling participation to all citizens, men and women, of many different nationalities.
