Governmental Roles and Responsibilities Related to Underground Injection and Induced Seismicity - Induced Seismicity Potential in Energy Technologies - page 109

BOX 4.3
The National Earthquake Information Center
The NEIC, a headquartered in Golden, Colorado, is responsible for quickly determining the location and
size of destructive earthquakes worldwide and disseminating in near real time the information to concerned
national and international agencies, scientists, and the general public. NEIC produces a comprehensive
catalog of earthquake source parameters and macroseismic effects for all M 4.5+ earthquakes worldwide
and M 2.5+ earthquakes in the United States in coordination with USGS-supported regional seismic networks
(see Figure for a map of magnitude sensitivity of the seismic network within the United States). The NEIC
acquisition and processing system is designed for recording and analyzing seismic earthquakes on all scale
lengths from near-real-time monitoring of aftershock sequences using dense local arrays to modeling of all
damaging earthquakes worldwide.
For example, NEIC in 2011 simultaneously and seamlessly reported on the 2011 M 9.0 Japanese
earthquake and its aftershocks and multiple earthquake sequences in the United States that included Guy,
Arkansas; Mineral, Virginia; Prague, Oklahoma; and Trinidad, Colorado. In later cases, the existing seismic
monitoring system was augmented by dense local seismic stations that enabled automatic detection and
locations to magnitudes less than about 1.5.
In addition, NEIC and the Earthquake Hazards Program maintains a group of 32 portable seismic
recording systems, designed for both strong (large earthquakes) and weak motion (events less than M 3), in
order to respond to notable seismic sequences throughout the United States. This equipment is often loaned to
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Figure Map of the minimum detectable earthquake magnitude within the lower 48 states using the ANSS
array operated by the USGS/NEIC. Shading indicates the minimum-sized earthquake that can be detected
and located by the NEIC, as indicated by the color bar on the right. Triangles mark seismic station locations.
SOURCE: USGS/NEIC.