Purpose
The EarthScope Quality Assurance Section seeks to monitor and ensure access to the highest quality of seismic data possible.
Overview
In order to ensure that the EarthScope data user community has access to the best achievable quality of seismic and related data, the EarthScope Quality Assurance (QA) Team seeks to build a QA process that encompasses the EarthScope SEED archive. This process:
- speeds identification and reporting of quality issues to network operators,
- tracks resolution of reported issues,
- communicates current data quality issues to the user community effectively,
- facilitates reporting of potential data quality issues by data users,
- supports existing network operational agreements and reporting needs,
- incorporates multi-level QA based on data type and/or network needs,
- measures the homogeneity and improvement of archive quality over time,
- enables creation of research-ready data sets, and
- scales as the archive grows.
Primary Tasks
The QA team seeks to automate and streamline routine tasks using MUSTANG and related software whenever possible so that QA staff will be available to:
- develop partnerships with network operators that reflect good communication and coordination of effort,
- interact with the user community to familiarize them with uses and benefits of data quality metrics and translate user reports of data quality issues into improvements to the QA process,
- cultivate expertise within the QA team in evaluating the strengths, uses and limitations of existing metrics,
- identify areas where the existing QA process could be improved or optimized, and
- note where data quality could be preemptively enhanced before data leaves the Data Collection Centers through the introduction of new QA tools or methods downstream.
