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Earthquake early warning ShakeAlert 2.0; public rollout

Monica D. Kohler, Deborah E. Smith, Jennifer Andrews, Angela I. Chung, Renate Hartog, Ivan Henson, Douglas D. Given, Robert de Groot and Stephen Guiwits
Earthquake early warning ShakeAlert 2.0; public rollout
Seismological Research Letters (April 2020) Pre-Issue Publication: 1763-1775

Abstract

The ShakeAlert earthquake early warning system is designed to automatically identify and characterize the initiation and rupture evolution of large earthquakes, estimate the intensity of ground shaking that will result, and deliver alerts to people and systems that may experience shaking, prior to the occurrence of shaking at their location. It is configured to issue alerts to locations within the West Coast of the United States. In 2018, ShakeAlert 2.0 went live in a regional public test in the first phase of a general public rollout. The ShakeAlert system is now providing alerts to more than 60 institutional partners in the three states of the western United States where most of the nation's earthquake risk is concentrated: California, Oregon, and Washington. The ShakeAlert 2.0 product for public alerting is a message containing a polygon enclosing a region predicted to experience modified Mercalli intensity (MMI) threshold levels that depend on the delivery method. Wireless Emergency Alerts are delivered for M 5+ earthquakes with expected shaking of MMI> or =IV. For cell phone apps, the thresholds are M 4.5+ and MMI> or =III. A polygon format alert is the easiest description for selective rebroadcasting mechanisms (e.g., cell towers) and is a requirement for some mass notification systems such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Integrated Public Alert and Warning System. ShakeAlert 2.0 was tested using historic waveform data consisting of 60 M 3.5+ and 25 M 5.0+ earthquakes, in addition to other anomalous waveforms such as calibration signals. For the historic event test, the average M 5+ false alert and missed event rates for ShakeAlert 2.0 are 8% and 16%. The M 3.5+ false alert and missed event rates are 10% and 36.7%. Real-time performance metrics are also presented to assess how the system behaves in regions that are well-instrumented, sparsely instrumented, and for offshore earthquakes.


ISSN: 0895-0695
EISSN: 1938-2057
Serial Title: Seismological Research Letters
Serial Volume: Pre-Issue Publication
Title: Earthquake early warning ShakeAlert 2.0; public rollout
Affiliation: California Institute of Technology, Department of Mechanical and Civil Engineering, Pasadena, CA, United States
Pages: 1763-1775
Published: 20200408
Text Language: English
Publisher: Seismological Society of America, El Cerrito, CA, United States
References: 29
Accession Number: 2020-039419
Categories: Seismology
Document Type: Serial
Bibliographic Level: Analytic
Illustration Description: illus. incl. sketch map
N42°00'00" - N46°19'60", W124°34'60" - W116°34'60"
N45°30'00" - N49°00'00", W124°45'00" - W116°55'00"
N32°30'00" - N42°00'00", W124°30'00" - W114°15'00"
Secondary Affiliation: U. S. Geological Survey, USA, United StatesUniversity of California Berkeley, USA, United StatesUniversity of Washington, USA, United States
Country of Publication: United States
Secondary Affiliation: GeoRef, Copyright 2020, American Geosciences Institute. Abstract, Copyright, Seismological Society of America. Reference includes data from GeoScienceWorld, Alexandria, VA, United States
Update Code: 2020
Program Name: USGSOPNon-USGS publications with USGS authors

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