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Applying Waveform Correlation to Reduce Seismic Analyst Workload Due to Repeating Mining Blasts

Journal Article · · Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1785/0120210124· OSTI ID:1831165
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [2]
  1. Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
  2. Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.A.
  3. ENSCO, Inc., Springfield, VA (United States)

Agencies that monitor for underground nuclear tests are interested in techniques that automatically characterize mining blasts to reduce the human analyst effort required to produce high–quality event bulletins. Waveform correlation is effective in finding similar waveforms from repeating seismic events, including mining blasts. We report the results of an experiment to detect and identify mining blasts for two regions, Wyoming (U.S.A.) and Scandinavia, using waveform templates recorded by multiple International Monitoring System stations of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear–Test–Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO PrepCom) for up to 10 yr prior to the time of interest. We discuss approaches for template selection, threshold setting, and event detection that are specialized for characterizing mining blasts using a sparse, global network. We apply the approaches to one week of data for each of the two regions to evaluate the potential for establishing a set of standards for waveform correlation processing of mining blasts that can be generally applied to operational monitoring systems with a sparse network. Here, we compare candidate events detected with our processing methods to the Reviewed Event Bulletin of the International Data Centre to assess potential reduction in analyst workload.

Research Organization:
Sandia National Laboratories (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation (NA-20)
Grant/Contract Number:
NA0003525
OSTI ID:
1831165
Report Number(s):
SAND--2021-9739J; 699074
Journal Information:
Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, Journal Name: Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 112; ISSN 0037-1106
Publisher:
Seismological Society of AmericaCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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