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BKS - Byerly Seismographic Vault, Berkeley, CA, USA

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Entrance to Byerly adit

Entrance to Byerly adit

1987/05/05 00:00:00 - Present

Latitude: 37.8762
Longitude: -122.2356
Elevation: 243.90 meters

Typical STS-1 installation

Typical STS-1 installation

Location | Geology | Vault Conditions
Instrumentation | Network | Operation Notes
Noise Characteristics | Data Availability

Location:
Site is located in Strawberry Canyon, just east of the UC Berkeley campus, in an installation known as Byerly Seismographic Vault. The vault was constructed in 1962 in order to relocate instruments from Haviland Hall (station BRK), as "cultural" noise levels were growing in amplitude. The first digital broadband instrumentation was installed in 1988.

In addition to the UC Berkeley instrumentation, this vault is home to USGS tiltmeters and a UREDAS system. This site is frequently used for instrument testing and calibration.

Geology:
Miocene Claremont cherts and shales

Vault/Borehole conditions:
The instruments are sited in the Byerly Seismographic Vault in Strawberry Canyon. The vault is a 105 foot adit dug horizontally at a NW azimuth into the side of a hill. The piers are constructed of reinforced concrete in the rear of the vault and are not isolated from floor and walls. The vault is thermally stable and a ventilating/dehumidifying system is connected to all rooms. There are three interior doors leading to the room housing the seismometers. The seismometers are thermally insulated with 4 inches of polyurethane foam.

Instrumentation:
SensorDataloggerStart DateEnd DateSEED ChannelsLocation
AntennaCurrentQ330HR-GFE2011/02/25PresentVE?00
ClockPhaseQ330HR-GFE2011/02/25PresentLC?,VC?00
ClockQualityQ330HR-GFE2011/02/25PresentLC?,VC?00
InputVoltageQ330HR-GFE2011/02/25PresentVE?00
Kinemetrics FBA ES-T Accel. GFE (2 g max 10 v/g)Q330HR-GFE2011/02/25PresentHN?00
Streckeisen STS-1/E300 VBB Feedback SeismometerQ330HR-GFE2011/02/25PresentBH?,HH?,LH?,VH?00
SystemCurrentQ330HR-GFE2011/02/25PresentVE?00
SystemTemperatureQ330HR-GFE2011/02/25PresentVK?00
VCOValueQ330HR-GFE2011/02/25PresentVC?00

Previous Instrumentation

Network:
BK (Berkeley Digital Seismic Network)

Operation Notes: (may not be current)
This section summarizes major changes in equipment or in instrumentation at BKS.

  • 06/15/2004: BH channel sampling rate changed from 20 Hz to 40 Hz.
  • 01/22/2002: STS1-N replaced.
  • 01/07/2002: STS1-N observed to be noisy.
  • 12/03/1999: Q980 software upgraded from USHEAR to MSHEAR.
  • 06/02/1998: GOES clock replaced with Quanterra GPS1 clock.
  • 02/05/1998: Upgraded Q980 with 4 GB disk, ethernet card. Installed warpless baseplates.
  • 01/26/1996: Pressure and temperature sensors installed.
  • 10/20/1995: Analog telemetry replaced with frame-relay connection.
  • 03/30/1995: Q980 software upgraded to USHEAR.
  • 12/14/1993: The Q980 datalogger was replaced to repair a faulty digitizer module. This change affected the digitizer sensitivity which is reflected in the instrument response.
  • 12/03/1993: The Q680 datalogger was replaced with a Q980 unit. This change affected the digitizer sensitivity which is reflected in the instrument response.
  • 01/15/1993: Wood Anderson seismometers removed.
  • 05/09/1991: The PC-based 16-bit datalogger was replaced with a Q680 24-bit system. The Sprengnether ULPV seismometers were removed and replaced with a set of Streckeisen STS-1 instruments. A Kinemetrics FBA-23 accelerometer was installed.
  • 01/28/1988: A set of Sprengnether ULPV seismometers were installed with a PC-based 16-bit datalogger and a GOES clock.

Noise Characteristics:
The figures below are cumulative plots of power spectral density (psd) determined from the broadband channels. In each figure, the vertical component psd is plotted with blue diamonds, the north component psd with red squares, and the east component psd with green circles. The results are presented in the 5 different frequency bands, and the USGS/Albuquerque low noise model is plotted as a dashed line in each. The PSD units are in dB (decibel) relative to 1 (m/s**2)**2/Hz. The current annual plot is updated weekly.

Cumulative PSD results
1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
1999 PSD 2000 PSD 2001 PSD 2002 PSD 2003 PSD 2004 PSD 2005 PSD

Data Availability:
BDSN waveforms and associated metadata are available at the Northern California Earthquake Data Center (NCEDC).

Several tools provide access to SEED format data at the NCEDC, both in terms of querying the archives and allowing data requests.

Help on using these tools is available.

BDSN Overview | Map | Table