An ObsPy Library for Event Detection and Seismic Attribute Calculation: Preparing Waveforms for Automated Analysis

Abstract

We have implemented an extension for the observational seismology 'obspy' software package to provide a streamlined tool tailored to the processing of seismic signals from non-earthquake sources, in particular those from deforming systems such as glaciers and landslides. This 'seismic attributes' library provides functionality to: (1) download and/or pre-process seismic waveform data; (2) detect and catalogue seismic events using multi-component signals from one or more seismometers; and (3) calculate characteristics (‘attributes’/‘features’) of the identified events. The workflow is controlled by three main functions that have been tested for the breadth of data types expected from permanent and campaign-deployed seismic instrumentation. A selected STA/LTA-type (short-term average/long-term average), or other, event detection algorithm can be applied to the waveforms and user-defined functions implemented to calculate any required characteristics of the detected events. The code is written in Python 2/3 and is available on GitHub together with detailed documentation and worked examples.

Keywords

• geophysics
• seismology
• data processing
• reproducibility
• python