Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

GSN - Global Seismographic Network

By Earthquake Hazards Program

The Global Seismographic Network is a permanent digital network of state-of-the-art seismological and geophysical sensors connected by a telecommunications network, serving as a multi-use scientific facility and societal resource for monitoring, research, and education.

map of world with symbols for seismic stations
Sources/Usage: Public Domain. View Media Details
Distribution of Global Seismographic Network (GSN) stations in 2015. (Public domain.)

Formed in partnership among the USGS, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS), the GSN provides near-uniform, worldwide monitoring of the Earth, with over 150 modern seismic stations distributed globally. GSN stations are operated by the USGS Albuquerque Seismological Laboratory, the IDA group at UC San Diego, and other affiliate organizations.

Data from the GSN are archived at the IRIS Data Management Center.

GSN Stations

Station data and operational status.

GSN Heliplots

Real-time seismograms from GSN stations

Albuquerque Seismological Laboratory

The mission of the Albuquerque Seismological Laboratory (ASL) is to support the operation and maintenance of seismic networks. As part of this mission, the ASL is responsible for the USGS-portion of the Global Seismographic Network (GSN) and the ANSS backbone network.

Data

Waveform data from the GSN and ANSS backbone are transmitted from the station to the USGS National Earthquake Information Center in near-real time, where they are used for rapid earthquake response.

Partners

See also:

Related Content

link
concrete platform with solar panel in snow, and someone drilling into it

Photo Journal: Global Seismographic Network (GSN) Field Engineers Visit the Northernmost Town in the World

In October 2022 GSN field engineers from the Albuquerque Seismic Lab visited the northernmost town in the world, Longyearbyen (Svalbard, Norway) on their way north to GSN station IU-KBS for a station upgrade. GSN station IU-KBS is located in Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago.
By
Natural Hazards Mission Area, Earthquake Hazards Program
link

Photo Journal: Global Seismographic Network (GSN) Field Engineers Visit the Northernmost Town in the World

In October 2022 GSN field engineers from the Albuquerque Seismic Lab visited the northernmost town in the world, Longyearbyen (Svalbard, Norway) on their way north to GSN station IU-KBS for a station upgrade. GSN station IU-KBS is located in Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago.
Learn More

Achievements and prospects of global broadband seismographic networks after 30 years of continuous geophysical observations

Global seismographic networks (GSNs) emerged during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, facilitated by seminal international developments in theory, technology, instrumentation, and data exchange. The mid- to late-twentieth century saw the creation of the World-Wide Standardized Seismographic Network (1961) and International Deployment of Accelerometers (1976), which advanced global
Authors
Adam T. Ringler, Robert E. Anthony, R. C. Aster, C. J. Ammon, S. Arrowsmith, Harley M. Benz, C. Ebeling, A. Frassetto, W. Y. Kim, Paula Koelemeijer, H. C. P. Lau, V. Lekic, J. P. Montagner, P. G. Richards, D. P. Schaff, M. Vallee, William L. Yeck
By
Natural Hazards Mission Area, Geologic Hazards Science Center

Improved resolution across the Global Seismographic Network: A new era in low-frequency seismology

The Global Seismographic Network (GSN)—a global network of ≈150 very broadband stations—is used by researchers to study the free oscillations of the Earth (≈0.3–10 mHz) following large earthquakes. Normal‐mode observations can provide information about the radial density and anisotropic velocity structure of the Earth (including near the core–mantle boundary), but only when signal‐to‐noise ratios
Authors
Adam T. Ringler, Robert E. Anthony, P. Thompson Davis, Carl Ebeling, K. Hafner, R. Mellors, S. Schneider, David C. Wilson
By
Natural Hazards Mission Area, Earthquake Hazards Program, Geologic Hazards Science Center

An evaluation of the timing accuracy of global and regional seismic stations and networks

Clock accuracy is a basic parameter of any seismic station and has become increasingly important for seismology as the community seeks to refine structures and dynamic processes of the Earth. In this study, we measure the arrival time differences of moderate repeating earthquakes with magnitude 5.0–5.9 in the time range of 1991–2017 at the same seismic stations by cross‐correlating their highly si
Authors
Ying Yang, Xiaodong Song, Adam T. Ringler
By
Natural Hazards Mission Area, Earthquake Hazards Program, Geologic Hazards Science Center

Rayleigh wave amplitude uncertainty across the Global Seismographic Network and potential implications for global tomography

The Global Seismographic Network (GSN) is a multiuse, globally distributed seismic network used by seismologists, to both characterize earthquakes and study the Earth’s interior. Most stations in the network have two collocated broadband seismometers, which enable network operators to identify potential metadata and sensor issues. In this study, we investigate the accuracy with which surface waves
Authors
Adam T. Ringler, Robert E. Anthony, C. A. Dalton, David C. Wilson
By
Natural Hazards Mission Area, Earthquake Hazards Program, Geologic Hazards Science Center

Rayleigh wave ellipticity measurement uncertainty across the IRIS/USGS and New China Digital Seismograph Networks

Long-period Rayleigh wave horizontal to vertical amplitude (H/V) ratios at a station provide information about local earth structure that is complementary to phase velocity. However, a number of studies have observed that significant scatter appears in these measurements making it difficult to use H/V ratio measurements to resolve earth structure. Some of the scatter in these measurements has been
Authors
Adam T. Ringler, David C. Wilson, Walter Zürn, Robert E. Anthony
By
Natural Hazards Mission Area, Earthquake Hazards Program, Geologic Hazards Science Center

Detection and characterization of pulses in broadband seismometers

Pulsing - caused either by mechanical or electrical glitches, or by microtilt local to a seismometer - can significantly compromise the long‐period noise performance of broadband seismometers. High‐fidelity long‐period recordings are needed for accurate calculation of quantities such as moment tensors, fault‐slip models, and normal‐mode measurements. Such pulses have long been recognized in accele
Authors
David C. Wilson, Adam T. Ringler, Charles R. Hutt
By
Natural Hazards Mission Area, Earthquake Hazards Program, Geologic Hazards Science Center

Upgrade of the New China Digital Seismograph Network

No abstract available.
Authors
D. Anderson, J. Anderson, D. Ford, Lind S. Gee, G. Gyure, Charles R. Hutt, E. Kromer, B. Marshall, K. Persefield, Adam T. Ringler, M. Sharratt, Tyler Storm, David C. Wilson, D. Yang, Z. Zheng
By
Natural Hazards Mission Area, Earthquake Hazards Program, Geologic Hazards Science Center

Uncertainty estimates in broadband seismometer sensitivities using microseisms

The midband sensitivity of a seismic instrument is one of the fundamental parameters used in published station metadata. Any errors in this value can compromise amplitude estimates in otherwise high-quality data. To estimate an upper bound in the uncertainty of the midband sensitivity for modern broadband instruments, we compare daily microseism (4- to 8-s period) amplitude ratios between the vert
Authors
Adam T. Ringler, Tyler L. Storm, Lind S. Gee, Charles R. Hutt, David C. Wilson
By
Natural Hazards Mission Area, Earthquake Hazards Program, Geologic Hazards Science Center

Estimating pole/zero errors in GSN-IRIS/USGS network calibration metadata

Mapping the digital record of a seismograph into true ground motion requires the correction of the data by some description of the instrument's response. For the Global Seismographic Network (Butler et al., 2004), as well as many other networks, this instrument response is represented as a Laplace domain pole–zero model and published in the Standard for the Exchange of Earthquake Data (SEED) forma
Authors
A. T. Ringler, C. R. Hutt, R. Aster, H. Bolton, L.S. Gee, T. Storm
By
Natural Hazards Mission Area, Earthquake Hazards Program, Geologic Hazards Science Center

Some possible causes of and corrections for STS-1 response changes in the Global Seismographic Network

The Global Seismographic Network (GSN) (Figure 1) plays a key role in providing seismic data for global earthquake monitoring (e.g., Benz et al. 2005), earthquake science (e.g., Tsai et al. 2005), and studies of Earth structure (e.g., Dalton et al. 2008). One of the key GSN design goals is to "provide high fidelity digital recordings of all teleseismic ground motions (adequate to resolve at or nea
Authors
C. R. Hutt, A. T. Ringler
By
Natural Hazards Mission Area, Earthquake Hazards Program, Geologic Hazards Science Center

The Global Seismographic Network

No abstract available.
Authors
Lind S. Gee, William S. Leith
By
Natural Hazards Mission Area, Earthquake Hazards Program, Geologic Hazards Science Center

Seismically observed seiching in the Panama Canal

A large portion of the seismic noise spectrum is dominated by water wave energy coupled into the solid Earth. Distinct mechanisms of water wave induced ground motions are distinguished by their spectral content. For example, cultural noise is generally
Authors
D.E. McNamara, A. T. Ringler, C. R. Hutt, L.S. Gee

Related Content