Last updated on August 12th 2016.

Note

The following links shows the example project as it should be just before step 3. You can use this to check your progress or restart the tutorial at this very point.

After Step 3: Seismic Events

4. Station Data

LASIF needs to know the coordinates and instrument response of each channel. One way to achieve this, is to use SAC files, which contain coordinates, and RESP files containing the response information for each channel. Another possibility is to use MiniSEED waveform data and the corresponding dataless SEED or StationXML files. Please keep in mind that LASIF currently expects to only have channels of one station in each dataless SEED and StationXML file. All station information files are stored in a subfolder of the STATIONS directory.

For more information about how LASIF derives station coordinates: How LASIF Finds Coordinates

Caution

If possible in any way, we strongly recommend to use station data in the StationXML format. It is the most future proof and sane format of the three. Please only use RESP files if absolutely necessary. The problem with them is that they do not contain coordinates and thus LASIF needs to derive them by other means which is not as clean and more error prone.

4.1. Naming scheme

dataless SEED

All dataless SEED files are expected to be in the STATIONS/SEED directory and be named after the following scheme:

dataless.NETWORK_STATION[.X]

NETWORK and STATION should be replaced with the corresponding network and stations codes. It is possible that multiple files are needed for each station (e.g. different files for different time intervals/channels) and thus .1, .2, … can be appended to the filename. LASIF will automatically choose the correct file in case they need to be accessed.

StationXML

All StationXML files are expected to be placed in the STATIONS/StationXML folder and follow the scheme:

station.NETWORK_STATION[.X].xml

The logic for for the different parts is the same as for the dataless SEED files described in the previous paragraph.

RESP Files

All RESP files are to be put in the STATIONS/RESP folder with the following name:

RESP.NETWORK.STATION.LOCATION.CHANNEL[.X]

In contrast to the two other station information formats the RESP filename also has to include the location and channel identifiers.

4.2. Stations for Tutorial

For this tutorial we will work with a bunch of well distributed stations in the domain of interest. Unpack this archive and place the XML files in the STATIONS/StationXML/ folder. At this point, LASIF is aware of the stations. Please note that the stations will not yet show up in any command as LASIF only treats data that has raw waveforms and an associated station file as being actually available.