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

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 | Operation Notes
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
Battery VoltageQ9352001/06/01PresentUE?,LE?
Internal TemperatureQ9352001/06/01PresentUK?
Kinemetrics FBA ES-T Accel. (2 g max 10 v/g)Q9352005/04/08PresentLL?,BL?,HL?
Kinemetrics FBA-23 Accel. (2 g max 1.25 v/g)Q9351992/04/292005/04/08LL?,HL?,BL?
Motorola MPX201 PressureQ9351996/04/09PresentLD?
Streckeisen STS-1 VBB Feedback SeismometerQ9351986/09/10PresentLH?,SH?,BH?
Streckeisen STS-1 VBB Feedback SeismometerQ9351992/04/29PresentVH?,HH?,UH?
Streckeisen STS-1 VBB Feedback SeismometerQ9352001/06/01PresentUM?
YSI 44031 ThermistorQ9351996/04/09PresentLK?

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)

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

  • 06/15/2004: Changed BH channels sampling rate to 40 Hz.
  • 12/16/1999: Q980 software upgraded to MSHEAR.
  • 04/22/1999: Replaced GOES with GPS clock. Upgraded Q980 with 4 GB disk. Installed ethernet card.
  • 12/16/1997: Q980 software upgraded to newest version of USHEAR.
  • 06/14/1996: Installed GPS receiver on roof of neighboring building.
  • 02/23/1996: Barometer and thermometer package installed.
  • 11/21/1995: Telemetry moved to frame-relay.
  • 06/12/1995: Software upgraded to USHEAR.
  • 02/02/1993: Replaced Streckeisen STS-1/UVBB seismometers replaced with a set of STS-1/VBB. The VBB instruments have a 10 Hz high-frequency corner while the UVBB have a 5 Hz corner.
  • 10/22/1992: The polarity of the NS channel of the STS-1 seismometer was corrected. From 04/29/92-10/22/92, the polarity of this channel was reversed and the sign of the Sd coefficient reflects this reversal.
  • 05/05/1992: Changed line-driver gain on the STS-1.
  • 04/29/1992: Replaced the 16-bit PC-based datalogger with the 24-bit Quanterra Q980 system.
  • 10/27/1987: The Streckeisen STS-1/UVBB seismometers were installed with a PC-based datalogging system.

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



Berkeley Seismological Lab
215 McCone Hall, UC Berkeley
Berkeley CA 94720-4760
www@seismo.berkeley.edu

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Copyright 1995-2005, The Regents of the University of California.
Last modified: Wed Jun 25 13:34:08 PDT 2008