The web services of the International Federation of Digital Seismograph Networks (FDSN) can be used to query the seismic station inventory, the earthquake database, and directly download waveform data.

FDSN Web Services provide a community standard approach to accessing seismic network information. The SED implementation uses SeisComP3. The SED supports each of the fdsnws standards, which are illustrated with the following examples:

This web service can be used to access station information from all openly accessible stations operated in Switzerland.

Explore the channel information for all stations in the Swiss Network (network code CH) beginning with the letter L:

http://eida.ethz.ch/fdsnws/station/1/query?net=CH&sta=L*&format=text&level=channel&nodata=404

or use wget to create a file describing the basic station information from the set of stations at Mont Terri:

In addition to the text format, station response information can be obtained in StationXML.

Note: This  fdsnws-station service only exposes the stations operated by the Swiss Seismological Service that are available on EIDA. These are typically all unrestricted stations from the national networks and temporary projects, as well as the Swiss AlpArray stations. The SED run internally another fdsnws-station service that includes all stations that are monitored by the network: including foreign stations used for improving seismic event detection and quantification, and additional stations deployed in Switzerland or elsewhere using the Swiss mobile and aftershock pools. The SED does not have the authority to provide public access to stations operated by foreign agencies, users interested in this data can access directly EIDA. Email SED_data_access@sed.ethz.ch if you have reason to want to access station information for foreign or restricted stations.

This web service can be used to access the entire SED earthquake catalogue of Switzerland, from AD 250 to the most recent events, as soon as they have been manually verified (within a few 10 minutes for a significant event). The catalogue served here comprises 2 separate eras:

  • AD 250 - 31/12/2008: ECOS-09 (official static product)
  • 1/1/2009 - today: SED running catalogue event catalogue (on-going manually reviewed catalogue built in real-time)

The following criteria are applied to the catalogue:

  • Event status: manually reviewed
  • Event type: Earthquakes, Induced Earthquakes, Quarry Blasts
  • Event location: within the ECOS09 region: box bounded by latitudes 45.4 - 48.3 and longitudes 5.6 - 11.1
  • Agency: the reporting agency is typically SED, but the preferred origin can be from another agency (most typically at the edges of the ECOS region).

Attention:

  • for all events from ECOS09 and post-2009 events reported by foreign agencies, full XML is typically not available.
  • currently Event Type cannot be restricted in the query. All event types are returned. Also, the Event Type attribute is not listed in the text output, only in the standard XML output.

To query all events in SED catalogue with M>=3.5 between 09/2005-01/2015:

http://arclink.ethz.ch/fdsnws/event/1/query?starttime=2005-01-01T14:00:00&endtime=2015-01-01T00:00:00&minmagnitude=3.5&format=text&nodata=404

or:

wget "http://arclink.ethz.ch/fdsnws/event/1/query?starttime=2005-01-01T14:00:00&endtime=2015-01-01T00:00:00&minmagnitude=3.5&format=text" -O SEDcat.txt

In addition to the text format, event information can be obtained in quakeML format - the following example can be used to access all events in the catalogue larger than 4.5 in XML format.

http://arclink.ethz.ch/fdsnws/event/1/query?starttime=200-01-01T14:00:00&endtime=2017-01-01T00:00:00&minmagnitude=4.5&format=XML&nodata=404

This web service can be used to download waveform data from all openly accessible stations operated in Switzerland. Data is only available in miniseed format, and is always in raw counts.  To convert the data to  actual ground motion response requires accessing the station information from fdsnws-station. Full deconvolution requires stationXML or datalessSEED, though correction for the channel sensitivity is sufficient within the sensor pass-band.

To download data from CHNet station BALST, HHZ component, for a M6 event in Greece (that occurred within the specified time window):

http://eida.ethz.ch/fdsnws/dataselect/1/query?net=CH&sta=BALST&loc=--&cha=HHZ&starttime=2013-10-12T13:11:53&endtime=2013-10-12T13:21:53&nodata=404

or:

wget "http://eida.ethz.ch/fdsnws/dataselect/1/query?net=CH&sta=BALST&loc=--&cha=HHZ&starttime=2013-10-12T13:11:53&endtime=2013-10-12T13:21:53&nodata=404" -O BalstHHZ.mseed

Note: This  fdsnws-dataselect service only provides access to the stations operated by the Swiss Seismological Service that are available on EIDA. These are typically all unrestricted stations from the national networks and temporary projects, as well as the Swiss AlpArray stations. The SED run internally another fdsnws-dataselect service that includes all stations that are monitored by the network: including foreign stations used for improving seismic event detection and quantification, and additional stations deployed in Switzerland or elsewhere using the Swiss mobile and aftershock pools. The SED does not have the authority to provide public access to stations operated by foreign agencies, users interested in this data can access directly EIDA. Email SED_data_access@sed.ethz.ch if you have reason to access this service.

fdsnws can also be used within obspy.

Further usage examples from the French implementation of fdsnws, including usage in shell scripts, or within obspy routines, are at http://portal.resif.fr/?FDSN-webservices.

Query builders for the IRIS implementation are available for each of the station, event and dataselect services.