ISC Bulletin: web services

https://doi.org/10.31905/D808B830

The ISC Bulletin has now been completely rebuilt for the period 1964-2010. As a result, the ISC hypocentre solutions and magnitudes for the entire period of 1964-latest are based on the ak135 velocity model and the location procedure that is currently used in operations. The Bulletin has been cleaned up and a considerable number of previously unavailable data of permanent and temporary seismic deployments have been added.

In order to help automate data retrieval tasks, the ISC provides a guide to constructing URLs for each of the web searches. These URLs can be used within a programming interface (e.g. using wget, LWP, etc.) to directly download data from the ISC:
E.g. wget --output-document='iscsearch.xml' 'http://www.isc.ac.uk/cgi-bin/web-db-run?...'

The following guide uses identical methods to the online web searches and may be used to search for any of the following:

  • hypocentres - prime (preferred) origins or secondary estimates;
  • magnitudes;
  • phase/arrival data;
  • focal mechanism solutions;










Web services: bulletin search

Output event parametric data in either QuakeML or ISF from the ISC Bulletin. Events may be selected by region, time, magnitude, depth, and number of defining phases. Returned data comprise of:

  • prime (preferred) hypocentre origins;
  • secondary estimates of hypocentres (optional);
  • magnitudes (optional);
  • phase/arrival data - travel-times, amplitudes, etc. (optional);
  • focal mechanism solutions (optional);


Web services: event catalogue

Output a catalogue of events in either QuakeML or as a CSV file from the ISC Bulletin. The output is limited to the prime (preferred) hypocentre and the magnitude values for each event, providing a condensed list of events. Events may be selected by region, time, magnitude, and depth. Returned data comprise of:

  • prime (preferred) hypocentre origins;
  • magnitude - all magnitudes for the event that match the search criteria - the default will return all magnitudes for the event.


Web services: arrivals

Output a list of arrivals associated to events in the ISC Bulletin, as either QuakeML, a CSV file or in IMS1.0 format. Arrivals may be selected by station (individual names or defined region), phase name, event time, event region, event magnitude, event depth. Returned data comprise of:

  • Phase data (station, station coordinates, phase, distance, back-azimuth, arrival-time, travel-time residual, etc.);
  • Prime hypocentre origin (time, lat, lon, depth);
  • Magnitude value for the event.


Web services: focal mechanism solutions

Output a list of focal mechanism solutions within the ISC Bulletin, as either QuakeML, or a CSV file. Focal mechanism solutions may be reqeusted from specific authors, allowing access to important datasets contained within the ISC Bulletin - for example the Global Centroid Moment Tensor Project. Returned data comprise of:

  • ISC Event id;
  • Origin data (time, lat, lon, depth) for each focal mechanism solution;
  • Scalar moments;
  • Moment tensor components;
  • Nodal planes;
  • Principal axes.