IRIS Searchable Product Archive and Discovery Engine

The IRIS Searchable Product Archive — SPADE — has released a new version with several new features. Chief among these are support for basic and advanced query views, map and calendar selection tools, and a broader range of cross–product common queries. While the interface remains superficially similar to the previous version, many changes under the hood enabled the new feature set.

One area of user concern had been the sheer number of query fields available for some products. While we still believe the ability to identify and search on product-specific fields is what sets SPADE apart, providing a customizable basic set of query fields allows the user to make queries without being over-whelmed when a more detailed query is not required.

Another improvement is the inclusion of selection tools for certain field types. In particular, SPADE now supports the map-based location selection tool as is available in the SeismiQuery pages, and a calendar tool for picking dates and times.

Added flexibility in the back-end systems now allows a variety of new cross-cutting query definitions, such as searching by location and time, “event-oriented” queries which add a magnitude, as well as by station and by channel queries. In addition, new cross-cutting queries can be defined using virtual fields that map into existing product or common field definitions.

Update: SPADE has been replaced by SPUD