AusPass

AusPass is a service dedicated to the acquisition, management, and distribution of passive seismological data in Australia and its periphery. Extensive fieldwork based experiments are conducted across the country, typically organised in distinct seismic arrays (i.e. groups of seismic stations). The data from these temporary arrays, listed in the AusPass metadata archive, are now available online. Permanent arrays, such as those from the Australian Seismometers in Schools network (AuSiS) and tie-stations, are also available through AusPass. To facilitate knowledge discovery and innovation, AusPass adopts and supports FAIR data principles. AusPass makes use of community agreed-upon procedures, data formats and protocols used by other FDSN international seismic data centres. New data, as well as archival data, are perpetually being added, so be sure to check back regularly.

Seismometers

Our passive seismic instrumentation fleet consists of hundreds of various types of instrumentation that are available for use via a successful ANSIR access application. They range from three-component broadband posthole and compact sensors to short-period nodal sensors and can be used for many different seismic imaging and recording purposes. The availability of the instruments listed below and the current experiments can be found on the ANSIR website and on the map of the latest deployments.

Broadband (>= 10 second period sensitivity): 120 Nanometrics Trillium Compact 120s, 30 Trillium Compact 20s, 65 Trillium Posthole 120s (all 3-channel)

Short Period (< 10 second): 100 Lennartz Electronics LE-3DLite MkII 1Hz 3-channel

Nodes: 360 short period SmartSolo IGU-HR15-3C 5Hz, 100 broadband SmartSolo IGU-BD3C-5 5 second. These have an individual battery life of ~30 days.

Others: A limited amount Sercel L-28-3D and Guralp CMG-3ESP

Seismic Data Loggers

The Earth Imaging program at ANU has developed a series of low-power data loggers over the years, and currently maintains both the smaller 3rd Generation TerraSawr data loggers as well as the larger beige 2nd Generation LPR-200 loggers. The pool also includes newly acquired 35 Nanometrics Centaurs.

Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS)

In 2020, AuScope Earth Imaging invested in a Silixa iDAS interrogator which is a transformative technology in the Earth Sciences and geoengineering. DAS records ground motion along a fibre-optic cable at metre scale sensing that is comparable to time-series that are obtained from single component seismometers. The Earth Imaging program now has three Silixa iDAS units in the instrument pool.

Australian National Ocean Bottom Seismometer (OBS)

The establishment of an OBS fleet was an initiative of AuScope in 2014. The Australian National OBS Pool is operational and ready for use on a variety of projects by academia, government organisations and our industry partners. The units are stored at the Australian National University and can be accessed via an ANSIR request.

Magnetotelluric field instruments

Portable electromagnetic equipment, including 25 Earth data logger long-period MT sets; 20 LEMI-424 long-period MT sets; up to 25 LEMI-423 broadband MT sets; and 5 Phoenix MTU-5C ultra-broadband MT sets. 5 licences of Geotools (CGG), 5 licences of EMPower (Phoenix) and (TBA) access to CGG 3D MT Inversion software.

A fleet of 100 electric and magnetic MT field instruments was built and made fully available to the Australian Geophysical community.

PROGRAM LEADER
Prof. Meghan Miller
Australian National University

For more information on current and potential projects or to access AuScope’s Earth Imaging and Sounding infrastructure component, please visit ANSIR.

PROJECT LEADERS
Dr Graham Heinson
Adelaide University

Dr Robert Pickle
Australian National University

DURATION
Since 2006

QUICK LINKS
AuSIS website, Facebook
and Twitter pages

ACCESS TOOLS, DATA & MODELS
ANSIR Research Facilities
for Earth Sounding
Passive Seismic Data and Data Products available via AusPASS