Training Workshop in Baku, Azerbaijan
23-27 October 2017
Baku, Azerbaijan
DOE, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
The Seismic Cooperation Program (SCP) of US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) recently organized a training workshop in Baku Azerbaijan. The Science and Technology Center in Ukraine facilitated the workshop and provided considerable logistical and financial support. The workshop was sponsored by The US Department of Energy, the Seismic Survey Center of the Azerbaijan Academy of Sciences, and IRIS. Participants came from the Middle East, Caucuses, and Central Asia including these 14 countries: Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, UAE. Lecturers came from Canada, Germany, Hungary, and the United States. A total of ~50 people attended the workshop. The Science & Technology Center in Ukraine facilitated the workshop and provided considerable logistical and financial support.
The major topics discussed in the workshop included Gurban Yetermishli providing the seismic setting of Azerbaijan in the opening keynote address, followed by Tuna Onur providing the motivation for improving the monitoring in the region from a structural engineering perspective. Rengin Gok and Rob Mellors of LLNL presented talks on Seismic structure and Mud Volcanoes. Bob Woodward and Katrin Hafner gave an overview of IRIS and the Global Seismograph Network. This was followed by a series of lectures discussing the International Federation of Digital Seismograph Networks (FDSN) and the new effort to develop a worldwide federation of seismic data centers, by Tim Ahern; an overview of seismic site selection and installation concerns by Pete Davis; an overview of the MUSTANG Quality Assurance initiative at IRIS by Laura Keyson; an overview of IRIS data services and methods to archive and access the large archive at the IRIS DMC by Tim Ahern; ObsPy training was given by Tobias Megies; instruction on the ILOC program was presented by Istvan Bondar, and finally Bernd Weber provided one day of instruction on the SeisComp3 seismic network management system.
This was a productive meeting, the first of its kind that combined the Middle East, Caucuses, and Central Asian seismic networks. All participants agreed that a great deal of technical information was provided that would help future coordination and improve the seismic monitoring capability in this region.
by Tim Ahern (IRIS Data Management Center)