Underground Seismic Monitoring Network

by Li Zhuoxi

Earthquake forecasting is still extremely difficult despite a high demand for it globally. Its difficulty lies in the impenetrability of the earth and the complexity of earthquake gestation. To solve this problem， China will build its first underground“nephogram” network for earthquake monitoring in Sichuan and Yunnan provinces.

Construction will be led by the Sichuan Earthquake Early Warning Key Laboratory and the Chengdu-based Institute of Care-life. It will take two years to establish 2，000 monitoring stations in the two earthquake-prone provinces. The system will be the first of its kind in the world.

Nephogram is a term from meteorology， which is commonly used in weather forecasting. By analyzing the visual characteristics of clouds， meteorologists can infer the meteorological conditions that formed the clouds and predict future weather changes.

An underground “nephogram” network is formed by connecting seismic monitoring stations that provide data through real-time monitoring of the underground stress and energy directly related to earthquakes. The data is then transmitted to a forecasting center where it is automatically processed to generate an underground earthquakes map similar to a satellite nephogram used for weather forecasting.

The depths of earthquakes that are most destructive to humans are almost all less than 20 kilometers， including the catastrophic earthquakes in Tangshan， Hebei Province and Wenchuan， Sichuan Province.

The main goal of the underground seismic monitoring network is to solve the problem hindering imminent prediction of devastating shallow-focus earthquakes （less than 20 kilometers deep）.

According to the scientific research plan， the Sichuan Earthquake Early Warning Key Laboratory and the Institute of Care-life will complete the underground seismic monitoring network in one to two years. Then， they will spend three years testing the new network using data collected from about 10 destructive earthquakes.

Already， the first monitoring station and sensor equipment of the network have been deployed at the Yingxiu Seismological Station in Wenchuan County.