CENTER FOR ENGINEERING STRONG MOTION DATA (CESMD)

The California Geological Survey (CGS) and U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) have jointly established the Center for Engineering Strong-Motion Data, CESMD, to provide a single access point for earthquake strong-motion records and station metadata from the CGS California Strong-Motion Instrumentation Program, the USGS National Strong-Motion Program, and the U.S. Advanced National Seismic System (ANSS). The Center provides uniformly processed U.S. strong-motion data at www.strongmotioncenter.org. The CESMD builds on the Engineering Data Center of the California Integrated Seismic Network (CISN), and so will continue to serve the California region while expanding to serve other ANSS regions. The Center has operational centers in Sacramento and Menlo Park, California. Products are generated by both CGS and USGS facilities, thus ensuring robustness.

As of March 2010, the CESMD provided access to more than 5400 station records from over 200 U.S. and international earthquakes. The CESMD notifies over 2000 registered users when strong motion record is available for earthquakes with magnitude 5.0 or over. The Center provides a variety of features to view and download data, such as earthquake and station maps, and search engine in order to facilitate strong motion data usage.

The CESMD is in the process of assimilating the Strong-Motion Virtual Data Center, which was developed at U.C. Santa Barbara with support from the Consortium of Strong Motion Observation System (COSMOS), National Science Foundation (NSF), and the Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC). The goal of this integration is to provide all users with a more convenient one-stop portal to both US and international strong motion data.