Seismic Network Station Infrastructure as the Basis for Multi-Disciplinary Geophysical Stations

Geophysical monitoring requires the highest level of performance and reliability from purpose-built and tightly integrated instrumentation and infrastructure. Parallel and separate efforts between different scientific disciplines seen in the past came at the expense of duplicated infrastructure, telemetry and power subsystems, and even land use permits. This duplication increases costs, ultimately limiting station counts and reducing “the reach” of monitoring networks. Recent ambitions to combine multi-disciplinary geophysical applications into streamlined deployments led to initiatives such as the European Plate Observing System (EPOS) and the recent amalgamation of the SAGE and GAGE programs in the United States.

Modern seismic dataloggers, such as the Nanometrics Centaur, support a wide range of seismo-acoustic sensor interfaces and sensor types while maintaining ultra-low power consumption, precise timing, and reliable data transport with automatic back-fill features over flexible telemetry mediums. These properties transformed the Centaur’s capabilities to act as a highly versatile foundation in multi-disciplinary geophysical station deployments. 

Despite initially being designed as a high-performance data recorder for seismic applications, Centaur’s applicability has evolved to include data collection for the infrasonic, geodetic, magnetic, and meteorological domains. This triggered the development and addition of purpose-built features to support multi-disciplinary use cases with the same proven performance and reliability of a Centaur seismic station.

Both existing and planned capabilities that enable reliable and efficient multi-disciplinary science are discussed.