Access Data

Waveform Data

The SCEDC archives seismic waveform data from many sources, but primarily from the Southern California Seismic Network (SCSN) and its Southern California predecessors. Most of the waveform data can be categorized as passive source seismic data collected by broad-band, strong-motion and analog instruments.

Digital Seismograms

Most of the seismic waveform archive exists as digital waveforms, single value timeseries stored in miniSEED format. The SCEDC has event based time windows, or gathers, sometimes called "triggered waveforms" for events 1977-present. The SCEDC has continous waveform data for low sample rate data (40 sps and lower) starting in 1999. Archival of continuous waveforms 80 sps and greater began in 2008 and by 2010, all continuous waveforms have been archived at the SCEDC. Our archival practices over time are documented at the Waveform Archival Policies page.
To convert the counts of the digital data into the earth units (usually ground velocity or acceleration) please see our Station Metadata and Maps section page to get instrument response.

Access Methods

    Waveform Web Services
    • Web STP is a web service version of STP, which allows users to retrieve continuous or triggered waveform data in various formats, as well as download phase data for events in the SCEDC earthquake catalog. Users can either use the form or call the service programmatically via curl or wget.
    • FDSN Waveform Web Service allows users to retrieve continuous waveform data in miniSEED format. This service follows FDSN Web Service specifications (fdsnws-dataselect). Users can either use the form or call the service programmatically via curl or wget.
    Client
    Cloud
    • The SCEDC AWS Public Dataset
    • - A copy of SCEDC's data is hosted in s3 bucket and is free to download as part of the AWS Open Dataset program. Updates are made daily.

Paper Seismograms