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An Updated Catalog of Low-Frequency Earthquakes Along the San Andreas Fault Near Parkfield, California

Metadata Updated: October 29, 2025

This Data Release contains an updated version of the San Andreas catalog of low-frequency earthquakes (LFEs): Shelly, D. R. (2017), A 15 year catalog of more than 1 million low-frequency earthquakes: Tracking tremor and slip along the deep San Andreas Fault, J. Geophys. Res. Solid Earth, 122, 3739–3753, doi:10.1002/2017JB014047. This catalog contains 88 LFE families, with each family consisting of events detected by cross-correlation with the associated waveform template. These templates were identified and located by Shelly and Hardebeck (2010): Shelly, D. R., and J. L. Hardebeck (2010), Precise tremor source locations and amplitude variations along the lower-crustal central San Andreas Fault, Geophys. Res. Lett., 37, L14301, doi:10.1029/2010GL043672. For completeness, we repeat the original catalog information provided in the supplement of Shelly (2017) below, with minor modifications: Catalog Time-Period and Format: The low-frequency earthquake catalog spans from April 2001 to 30 April 2024 and contains 1,528,117 events. Format:
YYYY MM DD s_of_day HH mm ss.ss ccsum meancc med_cc seqday ID latitude longitude depth n_chan Explantions: YYYY MM DD (year month day) - Event time (template start time in UTC - ~1s prior to first S-wave arrival time at an HRSN station) s_of_day - Event time (template start time in UTC - ~1s prior to first S-wave arrival time at an HRSN station), second of the day (i.e. 0-86400), HH mm ss.ss (hour, minute, second) - Event time (template start time in UTC- ~1s prior to S-wave arrival time at first HRSN station) ccsum - correlation sum across all stations (must exceed 4.0) meancc - mean correlation among stations with data med_cc - median correlation seqday - sequential day since March 1, 2001 ID - reference ID of family latitude longitude depth - estimated location for that family (Shelly and Hardebeck, 2010) n_chan - number of data channels existing for event (some channels may exist, but not have good data) Family IDs: Each family has an associated identification code, which is a number followed by 1-4 ‘s’. The family IDs are almost meaningless and are simply used as unique identifiers. Originally the numeric code was taken from the second of the day at which the initial template for this family occurred. The number of ‘s’ indicates the number of iterations of stacking and cross-correlation that were applied to derive the template waveforms (see Methods). The lower amplitude and more distant sources typically benefitted from multiple iterations of stacking and cross correlation, before the final template stabilized in its detection set. Data channels Used (station.channels): GHIB.13, EADB.123, JCSB.1, FROB.123, JCNB.123, VCAB.123, MMNB.123, CCRB.123, LCCB.123, SMNB.123, RMNB.123, SCYB.123 JCNB failed in 2008 and was replaced by a shallow sensor. New sensor not used. RMNB failed in 2011 and was not replaced. GHIB.2 was never operational JCSB.23 have poor signal to noise and are not used. VARB was replaced with a new sensor at a new depth in 2003, and this station was not used in original template formation. As of 2024, detection capabilities were substantially degraded with a maximum of 16 channels of data available for detection. This is due to outages in GHIB (since 2020), FROB (since 2023), VCAB (since 2023), and CCRB (since 2022), in addition to the outages described above. It is unclear when/if these stations might be repaired in the future. Channel swap on FROB, VCAB (after BP->SP channel swap, before 2011-7-14): 2011/4/21-2011/7/14: Swap VCAB.2 and VCAB.3 2010/11/10-2011/7/14: Swap FROB.2 and FROB.3 Disregard mean correlation, enforce network correlation sum only (because of poor but present data): 2012/2/13-2014/4/23 Polarity corrections during initial processing: CCRB.123, correct for reversed polarity from 2001-6-1 to 2001-12-13. FROB.123, correct for reverse polarity from 2010/12/10-2011/4/7 MMNB.123, correct for reverse polarity from 2010/12/10-2011/4/7 FROB.23, correct for reverse polarity from 2010/4/8 to 2011-7-14 Polarity corrections applied in post-processing (these are minor and done after initial detection stage): 2011-4-7 to 2011-5-27: zero FROB.2 channel (wiring mistake, FROB.2 duplicates FROB.3) 2005/4/11-2005/5/13: reverse GHIB.13 2005/12/15-present: reverse GHIB.3 2002/11/22-2003/1/16: reverse EADB.2 2002/11/21-2003/1/17: reverse VCAB.3

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

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Dates

Metadata Created Date September 12, 2025
Metadata Updated Date October 29, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI USGS DCAT-US

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date September 12, 2025
Metadata Updated Date October 29, 2025
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
Identifier http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/usgs-67069991d34ef5df0d802308
Data Last Modified 2024-10-21T00:00:00Z
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 010:12
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://ddi.doi.gov/usgs-data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id a479bdba-82fe-414c-93cf-059f7177b72f
Harvest Source Id 2b80d118-ab3a-48ba-bd93-996bbacefac2
Harvest Source Title DOI USGS DCAT-US
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial -121.1000, 35.4000, -120.0000, 36.5000
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 08af08c43e3043409922e7478a249c814e96b12775c5f69101b7a247b58b8f8b
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": -121.1000, 35.4000, -121.1000, 36.5000, -120.0000, 36.5000, -120.0000, 35.4000, -121.1000, 35.4000}

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