Near real-time determination of earthquake source parameters from the coastal ocean

In this paper we present a moored-buoy system for collecting near real-time seismic data from the coastal ocean. This easy to handle and sophisticated equipment allows the recording of useful passive seismic data in the costal ocean areas with maximum depth limited to the inductive maximum mooring depth (theoretical 7000 meters). Power consumption and noise level of the acquisition system are the key points to optimize the autonomy and the data quality. To achieve our goals, a new low power data logger with high resolution and Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) has been designed to enable continuous data acquisition. The paper includes the laboratory validation results by means of automated measuring systems and calibration procedures. The seismic acquisition equipment includes an on board inductive communication system developed to transmit near real time seismic data to the shore stations.