Global Seismic Networks Operated by the U.S. Geological Survey

Abstract

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Global Seismographic Network (GSN) Program operates two thirds of the GSN, a network of state-of-the-art, digital seismological and geophysical sensors with digital telecommunications. This network serves as a multiuse scientific facility and a valuable resource for research, education, and monitoring. The other one third of the GSN is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the operations of this component are overseen by EarthScope. This collaboration between the USGS, EarthScope, and NSF has allowed for the development and operations of the GSN to be a truly multiuse network that provides near real-time open access data, facilitating fundamental discoveries by the Earth science community, supporting the earthquake hazards mission of the USGS, benefitting tsunami monitoring by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and contributing to nuclear test monitoring and treaty verification. In this article, we describe the installation and evolution of the seismic networks operated by the USGS that ultimately led to the USGS portion of the GSN (100 stations under network codes IU, IC, and CU) as they are today and envision technological advances and opportunities to further improve the utility of the network in the future. This article focuses on the USGS-operated component of the GSN; a companion article on the GSN stations funded by the NSF and operated by the Cecil and Ida Green Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California at San Diego by Davis et al. (2023) appears in this volume.