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Quakeml Status of the XML-Based Seismological Data Exchange Format

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Quakeml Status of the XML-Based Seismological Data Exchange Format Research Collection Journal Article QuakeML Status of the XML-based seismological data exchange format Author(s): Schorlemmer, Danijel; Euchner, Fabian; Kästli, Philipp; Saul, Joachim Publication Date: 2011 Permanent Link: https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000034821 Originally published in: Annals of Geophysics 54(1), http://doi.org/10.4401/ag-4874 Rights / License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported This page was generated automatically upon download from the ETH Zurich Research Collection. For more information please consult the Terms of use. ETH Library ANNALS OF GEOPHYSICS, 54, 1, 2011; doi: 10.4401/ag-4874 QuakeML: status of the XML-based seismological data exchange format Danijel Schorlemmer1,2, Fabian Euchner3,*, Philipp Kästli3, Joachim Saul2 and the QuakeML Working Group4 1 Southern California Earthquake Center, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA 2 Helmholtz Centre Potsdam, GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Potsdam, Germany 3 Swiss Seismological Service, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland 4 See Acknowledgments section Article history Received May 5, 2010; accepted November 19, 2010. Subject classification: Seismology/General or miscellaneous, Computational geophysics/Data processing, Data dissemination/Seismological data. ABSTRACT resulting in many formats essentially describing the same things. This is in particular the case when dealing with QuakeML is an XML-based data exchange standard for seismology that is earthquake catalogs. In this domain, a plethora of formats is in its fourth year of active community-driven development. Its development being used; almost each seismic network uses a custom was motivated by the need to consolidate existing data formats for format. This continues to be an impediment in the applications in statistical seismology, as well as setting a cutting-edge, development of toolboxes for statistical seismology, because community-agreed standard to foster interoperability of distributed these codes need to provide import functionality for various infrastructures. The current release (version 1.2) is based on a public Request formats. As an additional difficulty, documentation of these for Comments process and accounts for suggestions and comments provided data formats, especially the more exotic ones, is often by a broad international user community. QuakeML is designed as an incomplete, and the semantics of data fields may be unclear umbrella schema under which several sub-packages are collected. The and the lack of their description can lead to improper data present scope of QuakeML 1.2 covers a basic description of seismic events usage. Some of the existing data formats stem from including picks, arrivals, amplitudes, magnitudes, origins, focal corresponding software products (e.g. Hypoinverse) [Klein mechanisms, and moment tensors. Work on additional packages 2007], others are standards that have been established by (macroseismic information, ground motion, seismic inventory, and resource international organizations (e.g. the seismic format of the metadata) has been started, but is at an early stage. Several applications International Association of Seismology and Physics of the based on the QuakeML data model have been created so far. Among these are Earth's Interior) [Willemann et al. 2001], but often with no or earthquake catalog web services at the European Mediterranean little involvement of the community. Most of them use fixed- Seismological Centre (EMSC), GNS Science, and the Southern California field width ASCII data files, which makes it virtually Earthquake Data Center (SCEDC), and QuakePy, an open-source Python- impossible to extend them. The motivation behind based seismicity analysis toolkit. Furthermore, QuakeML is being used in QuakeML was to provide comprehensive coverage of the SeisComP3 system from GFZ Potsdam, and in the Collaboratory for the community-agreed content, and still have the possibility to Study of Earthquake Predictability (CSEP) testing center installations, add local extensions that are not part of the official standard developed by Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC). QuakeML but still retaining full standard compliance. To serve that is still under active and dynamic development. Further contributions from purpose, XML (eXtensible Markup Language) was chosen as the community are crucial to its success and are highly welcome. the base technology. XML is a standardized general-purpose markup language that allows the formal definition of 1. Introduction descriptive languages for a broad range of applications [Bray Seismological data cover a broad range of information et al. 2000]. One of its strengths is that it is plain-text based. and are stored and exchanged in many different formats. Thus, it is platform-independent, readable by humans and Often, these format definitions are tailored to fit the specific machines, and probably reasonably future-proof regarding requirements for a narrow field of applications. Even though technological advancement. these formats share a good portion of the data fields, their XML-based data interchange formats have been definitions do not support any kind of compatibility, developed for many fields of science and technology during 59 SCHORLEMMER ET AL. the last decade, often setting new community-approved of possible problems as well as for easier adoption by the standards. Examples can be found in Geographic Information community that sees the user needs being accounted for. Systems, with the basic standard of the Geography Markup Language (GML) [Portele 2007], and domain-specific 2. Data model application schemas, like the GeoScience Markup Language The main rationale of QuakeML was to create a flexible (GeoSciML) [Laxton 2009]. In the astropyhsical Virtual format for data interchange to foster interoperability of Observatory community, many XML-based standard formats distributed infrastructures. The definition of this XML-based have been developed under the auspices of the International exchange format has been created in XML Schema (XSD) Virtual Observatory Alliance (IVOA, www.ivoa.net). A first [Biron and Malhotra 2004, Fallside and Walmsley 2004, basic outline of the general concept of QuakeML can be Thomson et al. 2004]. From QuakeML version 1.2 on, we also found in Schorlemmer et al. [2004]. The documentation of provide a definition in a different schema language, Relax NG the current QuakeML version (1.2) can be found in the (RNG) [Clark and Murata 2001]. QuakeML, however, is Documents section of the QuakeML web site. In the current more than just a data exchange format defined through a step of its evolution, QuakeML has been given a modular schema document. It is a data model that can be applied not design. There is an umbrella schema which defines the root only for data exchange, but also for data representation, XML element. First-level child elements are defined in manipulation, and persistent storage. We used the Unified separate packages which cover a specific thematic aspect. Modeling Language (UML, a general-purpose modeling Their schema definitions are imported from the umbrella language that is developed under the auspices of the Object schema. For QuakeML version 1.2, a first package has been Management Group, www.uml.org) to create the definition defined that provides a basic event description (BED) of of this data model. For that purpose, and also for seismic events and introduces a concept for unambiguous maintenance, a graphical UML modelling tool is used resource identification. The BED component covers all basic (Enterprise Architect by Sparx Systems). From this tool, the parameters as routinely reported by many networks, i.e. model can be exported to the XML Metadata Interchange hypocentral parameters (location, time, magnitude), their (XMI) format. XMI is an XML-based standard for the exchange uncertainties, moment tensor and focal mechanism of metadata information (www.omg.org/spec/XMI). The description, and pick/amplitude and arrival information. XSD and RNG schema documents are automatically created The BED package will in the future be complemented with from the XMI representation of the data model by applying subsequent standards on seismic inventory, resource an XSLT transformation. XSLT, the XML Stylesheet metadata, macroseismic information, and ground motion. Language, is a standard of the World Wide Web Consortium Work on these is under way. [Clark 1999]. The XMI document can also be used as the basis QuakeML (BED) describes properties of seismic events for other techniques of automated code generation. Some of in a hierarchical manner, using a posteriori knowledge of the the C++ classes and parts of the SQL database schema of relations between elements (e.g. association of origins to SeisComP3 are automatically generated from the XMI events). When dealing with real-time processing of seismic representation of the QuakeML data model. SeisComP3 is a data, this information may not be present. Therefore, an seismological software for data acquisition, processing, and alternative version using a flatter hierarchy has been defined distribution (www.seiscomp3.org) [Hanka et al. 2008, 2010]. for real-time use (QuakeML-RT BED). Note, however, that SeisComP3 currently is not based on the QuakeML also addresses one of the main challenges that most recent version of QuakeML. arise in networked scientific infrastructures. There is a need In the course of QuakeML data model development it to identify resources uniquely and to make them available became clear that logical and hierarchical
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