SURE Database Project: Add your data

The SURE (Surface Ruptures due to Earthquake) database is a volunteer initiative. The motivations are exposed in the founding Seismo. Res. Letters paper (Baize et al., 2020) and in previous public communications (e.g. Baize and Scotti, 2017). I have been largely involved in this initiative, and this is the reason why I develop this follow-up of the founding publication on my webpage. Note that the time I can dedicate to this project is fully supported by my institute (IRSN).

The publication of the SRL paper (2020) triggered a lot of interest. Several of those comments underline that this compilation is really fragmentary, and many earthquakes with outstanding and well-mapped surface ruptures are still lacking. That’s a fact, especially for the regions where such events have been numerous in the last 20 years, like Turkey, New Zealand or Australia.

Now (october 2022), a new release of the database, namely SURE 2.0, will be soon published at Nature, Scientific Data (Nurminen et al., 2022) and there is a significant increase in number of events and high quality data. However, there is still room for improvement. So, if you want to share additional data, please follow those lines:

Two options to include your data in SURE

On behalf on the SRL paper authors, I warmly encourage the data providers to follow these lines:

1) PUBLISHED DATA

To share your published data, let us know that they exist and relevant to be included in the next SURE database release. Please send me an email (stephane.baize@irsn.fr), so that your effort will be taken into account ASAP.

2) UNPUBLISHED or RE-FORMATTED DATA

To upload your unpublished data or re-formatted data into the SURE template, use the Zenodo option as explained below. Whether unpublished or re-worked, this option provides a DOI to your dataset. This is the best way to get properly your data in the database. Here is how it could be done.

Prepare your dataset(s)

Uploading your own datasets is the best way to guarantee that they will not be forgotten, leaving one trace on a common and shared space, Zenodo! 

In the 1st version SURE database (Baize et al., 2019), you will find all the information to prepare the data. You could upload your dataset in your preferred format. However, converting to the SURE format would be much appreciated because it would significantly reduce the amount of work for compilers before processing. In addition, this option will limit the risk of mistakes during further conversion and would guarantee a proper use of your dataset.

To help you, we provide the necessary elements in a Zenodo space (here: SURE database templates and explanation), in case you cannot access to the Baize et al. (2019) paper, with an example case (Owens Valley Earthquake, 1872).

-          A shapefile of rupture segments; we recommend to provide data in the WGS84 reference;

-          A table and a shapefile with slip observations;

-          A table with earthquake information;

We also reproduce in a docx format the description of the content of the fields in the Earthquake, Rupture sections and Slip observations tables.

This is not mandatory to fill in the complete cells of the tables. In slip observation tables, mandatory fields are coordinates and any slip measurement.

Adding your surface rupture datasets and share them through Zenodo

Zenodo is a free service that gives authors the ability to upload and provide access to the datasets. When uploading, Zenodo assigns a DOI to your dataset that can then be easily referenced. If your dataset already has a DOI, you can refer to it.

Step by step procedure to use Zenodo engine:

1. You have first to register as a user on Zenodo sign-up page: https://zenodo.org/signup/. To sign up, you need to define a username, a password and provide an email address.

2. When uploading, Zenodo will assign a Digital Object Identifier (DOI). Upload your dataset using the ‘upload button’ as indicated by the screenshot below.

3. Fill in the form with several required fields, marked with an asterisk. In order to keep the entries in the JPP Zenodo Community consistent we ask you to do the following:

• Communities: Please type ‘Surface Faulting Earthquakes’ to let your dataset traceable; as the administrator of the Community, I will be informed by email and will validate your input. You can personally write me an email to check;

  • Upload type: select ‘Dataset’;

• Digital Object Identifier: leave this blank if your dataset has not been published yet and then Zenodo will assign your dataset a DOI; if this is referring to a previous publication, indicate the corresponding one;

• Publication date: this is the date on which you added your dataset to Zenodo;

• Title: this should describe the basic earthquake information;

• Authors

• Description: in this field, you are free to add any summary describing the dataset and, if needed, to indicate to users to which paper your dataset refers to.

• Access Right: by default, this field is checked Open Access. Under this, you do not retain copyright. The license places your data as completely as possible in the public domain, so that others may build upon, enhance and re-use the work. Other licences are available if you do not wish to make your dataset available as Open Access.

Further information on Zenodo policy can be found here https://about.zenodo.org/policies/