MHC - Mount Hamilton

We operate broadband and borehole stations under the network code BK. The Berkeley Digital Seismic Network (BDSN) is a regional network of very broadband and strong motion seismic stations designed to monitor regional seismic activity as well as provide high quality data. The Berkeley borehole stations have borehole geophones or other seismic sensors and may have other geophysical instrumentation.

BARD is our GPS network for monitoring crustal deformation across the Pacific-North America plate boundary and in the San Francisco Bay Area for earthquake hazard reduction studies and rapid earthquake emergency response assessment

Load California Faults

Station Name	MHC (MHC2)
In Operation	1986/09/10 00:00:00 - Present
Latitude
Longitude:
Elevation:	1261.8984 meters
Instrumentation	Broadband GPS

Site

Location

Site is located at the Lick Observatory atop Mount Hamilton, and is under the auspices of UC Santa Cruz. The site was first established in 1887 with the installation of the first seismic sensors in North America, and has been occupied continuously since then. Wood-Anderson seismographs were deployed at this site in 1928 and operated until 1993. The first digital broadband instrumentation was deployed in 1987.

Network

Berkeley Digital Seismic Network (BK)
Bay Area Regional Deformation Network Network (BARD)

Geology

Jurassic-Cretaceous Franciscan greywacke and greenstone

Borehole Conditions

The vault is located in a room in the east wing of the Lick Observatory. The piers are reinforced concrete which are isolated from the building. The seismometer room is isolated from the hallway via two doors and the datalogger and supporting equipment are in an adjacent room. The seismometers are thermally insulated with 4" of polyurethane foam.

GPS Monument Description

Threaded rod cemented into roof of structure.

Plots & Figures

Seismic Station Pictures

View of the dome at MHC

Typical STS-1 installation

GPS Station Daily Timeseries

GPS Station Pictures

MHC2

Instrumentation

Table of Seismic Instrumentation

	Sensor	Datalogger	SEED Channels	Location
Broadband	Streckeisen STS-7 VBB Tri-Axial Seismometer	Q330HR-GFE	BH?,HH?,LH?,VH?	00
Accelerometer	EPISENSOR ES-T	Q330HR-GFE	HN?	00
Auxiliary	AntennaCurrent	Q330HR-GFE	VE?	00
	ClockPhase	Q330HR-GFE	LC?,VC?	00
	ClockQuality	Q330HR-GFE	LC?,VC?	00
	InputVoltage	Q330HR-GFE	VE?	00
	SystemCurrent	Q330HR-GFE	VE?	00
	SystemTemperature	Q330HR-GFE	VK?	00
	VCOValue	Q330HR-GFE	VC?	00

GPS Instrumentation

	Receiver	Antenna	Radome	-
GPS	SEPTENTRIO POLARX5	SEPTENTRIO SEPCHOKE_B3E6	SPKE	-

Data & Metadata

Waveforms and associated metadata, and GPS data, are available at the Northern California Earthquake Data Center (NCEDC).

Waveform Data

BK Information Directory, including
- List of station locations
- List of available channels
  - Year/month/day format
  - Year,doy format
- Instrument Response
  - SEED format
  - Simplified Responses

Querying the archives
- SeismiQuery at the NCEDC
Download waveform data

GPS Data

Site log: mhc2.log

Data Type From To
Low-rate raw 08/12/2022 present
Low-rate rinex 08/12/2022 present
High-rate raw 08/12/2022 present
High-rate rinex 08/12/2022 present

Data Type	From	To
Low-rate raw	08/12/2022	present
Low-rate rinex	08/12/2022	present
High-rate raw	08/12/2022	present
High-rate rinex	08/12/2022	present

Data Quality

Noise Analysis

View more noise plots

GPS Data Quality

Completeness

Data completeness is defined both as "Completeness of observations" and "Cycle slips per observation". "Completeness of Obs." is the number of epochs in the final RINEX file normalized to the expected number. This percentage will go down if time is missing from the RINEX file. "Cycle slips per Obs." is the total number of detected cycle slip normalized to the total number of observations in the RINEX file. This number will increase as the receiver loses lock on satellites more frequently.

Previous Year

Lifetime

Multipath

The effects of multipath on the data are estimated by parameters for L1 and L2 (MP1 and MP2 respectively); see Estey and Meertens (GPS Solutions, 1999) for derivation. The daily value is the RMS of MP1 and MP2 throughout the day and for all satellites. Higher values indicate a greater prevalence and/or strength of multipathing, i.e. objects on the ground are providing multiple reflection pathways from the satellite to antenna.

Previous Year

Lifetime

Signal-to-Noise Ratio

The Signal-to-Noise ratios are the mean values above the QC elevation mask for L1 and L2 respectively.

Previous Year

Lifetime