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Hafidh A. A. Ghalib , Ghassan I. Aleqabi , Fadhil I. Khudhur , Tawfiq Al-Yazjeen & Mahmoud Al-Qaryouti
Array Information Technology, 5130 Commercial Drive, Suite B, Melbourne, FL 32940, USA
Washington University in Saint Louis, Campus Box 1169, One Brookings Drive, Saint Louis, MO 63130, USA
Directorate General of Meteorology and Seismology, Erbil, Iraq,
Jordan Seismological Observatory and Geophysical Studies, Amman, Jordan
DOI: https://doi.org/10.17656/jzs.10491
Abstract
At the 7th Gulf Seismic Forum on January 22-25, 2012, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Ghalib et
al. (2012) proposed the establishment of vMESN. It is a virtual seismographic network
that all Middle East countries operating telemetered seismic stations can equally exploit
to monitor earthquakes in and around their respective territories. The overarching goal
of vMESN is to advance the teaching and practice of seismology and research among
member countries. It is a scientifically and economically rewarding concept with high
return on modest investment in resources and infrastructure. It is also technically
feasible to implement at member data centers to greatly improve the capability and
coverage of their national networks when augmented with international stations in the
region. The integrated real-time data that vMESN provides is invaluable for research
and development in seismology and earthquakes engineering. Presently, vMESN is
implemented and operational at Jordan, Erbil and Sulaimaniyah Seismological
Observatories (JSO, ESO and SSO, respectively) and at Array Information Technology
(AIT) data center in Maryland, USA. At no cost to the host and member countries, AIT
is contributing real-time data from the international stations in the region; Jordan is
contributing real-time data from their Jordan Seismological Network (JSN), and
Kurdistan from their KSIRS array and some of the North Iraq Seismographic Network
(NISN) stations. Three-component data from a total of 72 stations is currently being
automatically shared and independently processed at the aforementioned data centers.
The Antelope, and soon SeisComp3, real-time software system is configured to
automatically acquire, forward and process the data. The invitation is open to all
countries in the Middle East to join vMESN, if they commit to the requirement of
sharing data in real-time over Internet. Each member country continues to maintain full
control over their networks’ data and over what to acquire and forward to others. Also,
each member country continues to independently process the data and publishes bulletins
in accordance with its technical practices, standards and regulations.
Key Words:
vMESN
Middle East
earthquakes
seismographic
network
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