Product catalogue
Geological Survey of Western Australia: SWAN takes off - a new seismic monitoring project in Western Australia
The Geological Survey of Western Australia, in collaboration with the Australian National University, Macquarie University, the Department of Fire and Emergency Services and Geoscience Australia has just installed the first seismometers of an array across the South West Seismic Zone of Western Australia. This region is one of the most seismically active areas of Australia having experienced over 2000 small (between ML 2 to 3) earthquakes since the year 2000. Many smaller events are also noted by the local people who often hear them coming. Yes – hear them coming – this area is known for its “noisy” earthquakes. Most of these earthquakes occur in swarms rather than main shock-aftershock sequences (Dent, 2015). This means that the region experiences a lot of small earthquakes, all much the same size and which occur in a similar area. These swarms can be active for years.
The hazard associated with these seismic events is relatively small. However, in the past six decades this region has also hosted five of the nine surface rupturing earthquakes in Australia, most notably; Meckering (M 6.5) in 1968 from which there are photos of the bends in the railway lines (Fig 1a) and faulting of 2-3 m in height across the fields (Fig 1b) (Gordon and Lewis 1980; Johnston and White 2018, Clark and Edwards 2018); Calingiri (M5.9) in 1970 and Lake Muir (M5.6), which was felt by a lot of people across Western Australia just two years ago (Clark et al. 2020).
Despite the high rates of seismicity, seismic monitoring in the region remains relatively sparse. To overcome this lack of instrumentation, the consortium of institutions mentioned above, came together for an ARC Linkage project to put in place a temporary network- the South West Australia Network (SWAN) - to improve the monitoring and detection capabilities in this area. This project will see a total of twenty-five broadband seismometers deployed across the Southwest of Western Australia for a period of approximately 2 years (Fig 2a and b).
This temporary array will enable the detection and location of smaller-magnitude earthquakes which can be used to improve the crustal velocity models which in turn enables more accurate earthquake locations and helps the understanding of the crustal structure of this part of Australia. Better velocity models also enable better magnitude calculation methods, which improve the knowledge about recurrence of earthquakes of a certain magnitude. From a seismic hazard point of view, this data has the potential to assist in the development of improved methods for modelling how shaking intensity varies as it propagates through the earth’s crust from the earthquake source.
Overall, this information will feed into an improved understanding of the earthquake hazard in the Southwest region of Western Australia. For local communities, it will provide an improved situational awareness following significant earthquakes. More broadly, the improved understanding of the seismicity of the Southwest of Western Australia will enhance emergency response capabilities, and inform building codes and mitigation initiatives, which are the best methods we have to minimise the earthquake risks to communities.
Data will be released through AusPASS, the Australian Passive Seismic Server two years after the last data has been collected.
Simple
Identification info
- Date (Publication)
- 2020-10-19
- Date (Revision)
- 2020-11-04T03:15:53
- Citation identifier
- Geoscience Australia Persistent Identifier/https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/144331
Identifier
- Codespace
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Digital Object Identifier
- Cited responsible party
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Author Murdie, R.
Author Gessner, K.
Author Miller, M.
Author Salmon, M.
Author Yuan, H.
Author Whitney, J.
Author Gray, S.
Author Allen, T.
- Status
- Completed
- Point of contact
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Point of contact Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Voice Point of contact Allen, T.I.
Resource provider Place, Space and Communities Division
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- Geoscientific information
Extent
Extent
))
- Maintenance and update frequency
- Not planned
Resource format
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Product data repository: Various Formats
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Data Store directory containing the digital product files
Data Store directory containing one or more files, possibly in a variety of formats, accessible to Geoscience Australia staff only for internal purposes
- theme.ANZRC Fields of Research.rdf
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Seismology and Seismic Exploration
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EARTH SCIENCES
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Earthquake Engineering
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Natural Hazards
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- Keywords
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Published_External
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Resource constraints
- Title
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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence
- Alternate title
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CC-BY
- Edition
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4.0
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- License
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Australian Government Security ClassificationSystem
- Edition date
- 2018-11-01T00:00:00
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- Language
- English
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Distribution Information
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Distributor Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Voice
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Link to article
Link to article
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html
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- Statement
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Not supplied.
Metadata constraints
- Title
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Australian Government Security Classification System
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- 2018-11-01T00:00:00
- Classification
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Metadata
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Point of contact Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Voice Point of contact Allen, T.I.
Type of resource
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- Document
- Name
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GA publication: Geological Survey of Western Australia: SWAN takes off - a new seismic monitoring project in Western Australia
Alternative metadata reference
- Title
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Geoscience Australia - short identifier for metadata record with
uuid
- Citation identifier
- eCatId/144331
- Date info (Creation)
- 2019-04-08T01:55:29
- Date info (Revision)
- 2019-04-08T01:55:29
Metadata standard
- Title
-
AU/NZS ISO 19115-1:2014
Metadata standard
- Title
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ISO 19115-1:2014
Metadata standard
- Title
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ISO 19115-3
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Geoscience Australia Community Metadata Profile of ISO 19115-1:2014
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Version 2.0, September 2018
- Citation identifier
- https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/122551