Seismologists are scientists who study the earth, from the surface to the core, using physics theories combined with observations from seismic waves travelling through the planet. These observations are required to better understand earthquakes, faults, volcanoes, seismic hazards, landslides, and earth structures, as well as for economic applications such as identifying subsurface mineral or petroleum deposits.
Seismometers are the primary instrument needed to make these observations and so seismologists rely on the availability of these extremely sensitive instruments. In recent years, the production of more cost-effective sensors and access to large-scale data storage and computational facilities has led to an evolution in the number of seismometers used in seismic studies. However, individual sensors are generally too expensive for individual researchers to purchase and operate and thus have been restricted to large private companies or through well-funded but restricted government research consortiums.
To help the access to such equipment to the scientific community, the Finnish mobile seismic instrument pool was created in 2021. It is owned and operated by seven Finnish academic and research institutions: the University of Helsinki, the University of Oulu, the Geological Survey of Finland, the National Land Survey, Aalto University, the Technical Research Center of Finland and the University of Turku. The pool is funded through the Research Council of Finland call for research infrastructures (FIRI),. through the FLEX-EPOS project, under the FIN-EPOS* umbrella.
The initial funding for the project was started in 2021, with the instrument pool build-up phase ending in 2024. After that, the pool will continue to operate indefinitely. By the end of 2024, the pool is expected to include 46 Güralp broadband seismometers and 5 Güralp strong-motion accelerometers, as well as 1229 Geospace and 71 SmartSolo self-contained geophone units. When complete, this pool represents one of the largest mobile seismic instrument pools in Europe available in the public sector.
The pool is made available to researchers and supports domestic and international collaborative projects that enhance data-driven subsurface and environmental applications. Projects can last a few days up to a few years.
Between October 2021 and December 2023, 30 projects have been completed using the pool , generating around 28TB of data – equivalent to 280 Helsinki central libraries Oodi. These projects have helped seismologists further study diverse topics such as ground water, faults, frost quakes, ore bodies, crustal structure and local sedimentary overburden, with many more to come.
If you want to know more, you can check the FLEX-EPOS and seismic instruments wikipage: https://wiki.helsinki.fi/xwiki/bin/view/FLEX/Flex-epos%20Home/#. The pool will also be presented through a poster at the EGU24 meeting (14-19.4.2024), hall X1 at board number X1.120.
Roméo Courbis, University Researcher
FLEX-EPOS is funded through the Research Council of FInland FIRI2019 call (funding decisions no. 328984, 328776, 328778-328782, 328784 and 328786).
*FIN-EPOS is a Finnish national node of EPOS (European Plate Observing System).
