ANALYZING SEISMIC DATA FROM A LOW-COST CELL PHONE NETWORK FOR APPLICATION IN EARTHQUAKE EARLY WARNING SYSTEMS

Billions of people worldwide live near active fault systems where earthquakes could cause severe casualties and structural damage. Earthquake early warning systems aim\ to lower the risk of earthquakes by sending alerts to potentially affected people before shaking arrives at their location. One of the factors that affects the reliability and timeliness of alerts is the network density. The more stations in a network, the better the system will perform. Using only traditional seismometers limits network density, so supplementing a network with low-cost sensors, such as repurposed cellphones, could help improve the network while drastically lowering monitoring costs and deployment time. A temporary network made up of cellphones was tested for use in earthquake early warning in Costa Rica in 2019 to 2020 (Brooks et Al., 2021). We examine this data in detail to assess whether the fidelity of seismic data recorded with cell phones like these is sufficient for future early warning systems in the United States. The Nevada Seismological Laboratory has already begun deploying our own network of cellphones and additional low-cost sensors throughout the California-Nevada border region. Our careful analyses of the Costa Rican network will provide valuable practical and scientific insights that will transfer directly to network operations in Nevada and California.

Reference:

Brooks, B. A., Protti, M., Ericksen, T., Bunn, J., Vega, F., Cochran, E. S., et al. (2021). Robust earthquake early warning at a fraction of the cost: ASTUTI Costa Rica. AGU Advances, 2, e2021AV000407. https://doi.org/10.1029/2021AV000407