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MHC - Lick Observatory, Mt. Hamiliton, CA, USA

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View of the dome at MHC

View of the dome at MHC

1986/09/10 00:00:00 - Present

Latitude: 37.3416
Longitude: -121.6426
Elevation: 1250.40 meters

Typical STS-1 installation

Typical STS-1 installation

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

Location:
Site is located at the Lick Observatory atop Mount Hamilton, and is under the auspices of UC Santa Cruz. The site was first established in 1887 with the installation of the first seismic sensors in North America, and has been occupied continuously since then. Wood-Anderson seismographs were deployed at this site in 1928 and operated until 1993. The first digital broadband instrumentation was deployed in 1987.

Geology:
Jurassic-Cretaceous Franciscan greywacke and greenstone

Vault/Borehole conditions:
The vault is located in a room in the east wing of the Lick Observatory. The piers are reinforced concrete which are isolated from the building. The seismometer room is isolated from the hallway via two doors and the datalogger and supporting equipment are in an adjacent room. The seismometers are thermally insulated with 4" of polyurethane foam.

Instrumentation:
SensorDataloggerStart DateEnd DateSEED ChannelsLocation
AntennaCurrentQ330HR-GFE2010/11/17PresentVE?00
ClockPhaseQ330HR-GFE2010/11/17PresentLC?,VC?00
ClockQualityQ330HR-GFE2010/11/17PresentLC?,VC?00
InputVoltageQ330HR-GFE2010/11/17PresentVE?00
Kinemetrics FBA ES-T Accel. (2 g max 10 v/g)Q330HR-GFE2010/11/17PresentHN?00
Streckeisen STS-1 VBB Feedback SeismometerQ330HR-GFE2010/11/17PresentBH?,HH?,LH?,VH?00
SystemCurrentQ330HR-GFE2010/11/17PresentVE?00
SystemTemperatureQ330HR-GFE2010/11/17PresentVK?00
VCOValueQ330HR-GFE2010/11/17PresentVC?00

Previous Instrumentation

The MHC site also is home to a continuously operating GPS receiver (MHCB) as part of the BARD network.

Network:
BK (Berkeley Digital Seismic Network)

Noise Characteristics:
Network PDF Noise Analysis Plots

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