The monitoring, alerting, and analysis section operates Switzerland's national seismic network and uses it for basic and applied seismological research. The key objectives are to provide timely earthquake information and alerts through multiple channels and analyse seismic activity across the country. Alerts are sent to a wide range of users, including federal and cantonal offices, as well as the general public. The section focuses on all aspects of network seismology and associated science, from earthquake early warning (EEW) to final curated earthquake catalogues; pioneering research helps us continuously improve our products and services.
The section also provides seismotectonic interpretation for seismicity in Switzerland and surrounding regions. It manages local network densifications around anthropogenic industrial activities that may induce seismicity, such as geothermal exploration and tunnelling, while providing dedicated monitoring and alerting services. Additionally, the section develops real-time seismology software used extensively across Europe and globally.
The seismic monitoring and alerting of Switzerland is built on the dense and modern national seismic network comprising over 400 real-time stations, including more than 200 permanent stations. These are part of the national broadband and strong-motion networks and are supplemented by temporary networks, aftershock stations, school seismometers, and stations near the country's borders operated by foreign agencies. This extensive network ensures detailed earthquake detection. It is capable of seamlessly recording all earthquakes of magnitude 1.5 across Switzerland, and in many areas, even below magnitude 1.
The section collaborates closely with national and international stakeholders to maintain and enhance monitoring capabilities. It plays a crucial role in research, education, and public outreach, ensuring that seismological information is accessible and supporting preparedness. It is responsible for the organisation of two SED pikett (duty) service teams that provide an immediate manual review of felt earthquakes, manage the earthquake catalogue and maintain the 24-7 IT operations of the SED. The section further coordinates aftershock deployments after significant earthquakes in Switzerland and neighbouring countries.
The section is headed by Dr. John Clinton and is divided into four research groups.
Led by Philipp Kästli and Dr. Carlo Cauzzi, this group manages the core operations of Switzerland’s seismic network. It focuses on earthquake identification, quantification, and related scientific infrastructure and products. The group provides main outputs, Einladung earthquake locations, magnitudes, focal mechanisms, moment tensors, ShakeMaps, and waveform archives. It monitors and documents waveform availability and quality and maintains instrumentation metadata. In collaboration with the hazard and risk section, the data processing, products and alerting group supports the production of Rapid Impact Assessments (RIA). These outputs follow international community standards from FDSN. The group designs and manages the hardware and software systems and databases that support these functions, ensuring redundancy and reliability in data processing and alerting. It is also responsible for collecting and analysing felt reports following significant earthquakes.
This group, led by Dr. Maren Böse and Dr. Frédérick Massin, developss advanced methods for rapidly detecting and characterising earthquakes that potentially impact people and buildings. It focuses on earthquake early warning (EEW), rapid and evolutionary ShakeMaps, rapid impact assessments and awareness campaigns. The team is working closely with other SED groups to develop key components of a dynamic earthquake risk framework that seamlessly integrates diverse seismic products and accesses the same databases, workflows and software.
The group’s EEW efforts include developing, testing and operationalising algorithms (Virtual Seismologist, Finite-Fault Rupture Detector (FinDer)), optimising seismic network and processing infrastructure, distributing low latency alerts, conducting societal studies, and cost-benefit analyses. Among others, the group is working closely with teams from ShakeAlert (USA, CAN), Central America (NI, CR, SV, GT), GNS Science (NZ), INGV (IT), and CWA (TW). The group developed and managed the ETHZ-SED SeisComP EEW (ESE) add-ons. These tools facilitate real-time and playback testing, ensuring community standard data and metadata compatibility.
The real-time seismology group is also developing novel methods for rapid data assimilation from various European web services (ORFEUS, EMSC) and for the cross-border exchange of seismic waveforms. These efforts aim to develop workflows for rapid source characterisation (e.g., for ShakeMap calculations), including finite faults. Research is also being conducted into how new technologies like distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) can be integrated into real-time seismology. In addition, the group leads the seismo@school programme, which aims to educate students on earthquake science.
Led by Dr. Tobias Diehl, the seismotectonics group studies the relationship between earthquakes, individual faults, and tectonic processes in Switzerland and other tectonically active regions worldwide. The field of seismotectonics mainly incorporates information from precise earthquake locations, focal mechanisms, structure and properties of the lithosphere imaged by passive and active seismic data, geodesy, and geology.
A core task of seismotectonic analysis at the SED is the determination of focal mechanisms of earthquakes from seismic records. The group’s work is crucial to conducting probabilistic seismic hazard assessments. A special focus lies on the seismotectonic processes in the northern Alpine foreland since this region is targeted for future underground waste repositories.
Seismotectonic research is carried out in close collaboration with geologists from different Swiss universities (e.g., University of Bern) and non-academic partners (e.g., swisstopo, Nagra). The group is also involved in deploying seismic instruments and real-time monitoring tasks. In collaboration with other groups of the SED, the seismotectonic group is responsible for the regular earthquake reports published in the Swiss Journal of Geosciences.
The muma group focuses on methods to improve the imaging of seismicity patterns in natural and induced microearthquake sequences. Such patterns express the underlying earthquake-physical or external forcing mechanisms that drive the seismicity. Earthquake-physical mechanisms include all processes involved in the earthquake nucleation process in and near the seismic source. It can range from precursory aseismic slip to cascading foreshock interactions. In contrast, external forcing mechanisms incorporate all mechanisms impacting seismicity from outside the seismic source, ranging from earthquake-earthquake interactions, via seasonal hydrological changes, to anthropogenic impacts from geotechnical operations. High-resolution monitoring of seismicity patterns provides the most direct geophysical tool for imaging these processes outside of laboratory settings.
The muma group is led by Dr. Toni Kraft and works to improve the precision and reliability of Switzerland’s national earthquake catalogue through advanced data processing techniques. The group also takes a leading role in monitoring seismic activity related to industrial subsurface operations, such as geothermal energy projects in the framework of the GEOBEST project or tunnelling. Their research provides valuable insights into both natural and induced seismicity, contributing to safe industrial practices and improved public safety.