Australian Earthquake Local Magnitude Estimates with Quality Criteria, 2023-2024

Geoscience Australia's National Earthquake Alerts Centre analyzed 862 confirmed Australian earthquakes from August 2023 to August 2024. The record details procedures for calculating the Australian local magnitude (MLa) using three high-pass filter frequencies and quality criteria based on signal-to-noise ratios and station data. It provides recommendations to improve the robustness and consistency of real-time magnitude estimation for the national earthquake catalogue.

Use Cases

• Comparing magnitude estimation methods based on different waveform prefiltering frequencies (0.10 Hz, 0.50 Hz, 0.75 Hz).
• Evaluating the impact of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and station selection criteria on earthquake magnitude calculations.
• Improving real-time seismic monitoring operations based on the recommended procedures for MLa estimation.
• Enhancing seismic hazard assessments by refining the magnitude data ingested into the national earthquake catalogue.

Strengths

• Analysis is based on 862 confirmed earthquake events.
• Quality selection criteria target specific metrics like signal-to-noise ratios (SNR) and station distance.
• The number of usable magnitude estimates increased from 445 to 695 when applying a 0.75 Hz high-pass filter.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• The primary data format is PDF, which may require extraction for computational analysis.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia Data

Collection Method

Waveforms of confirmed earthquakes were prefiltered and analyzed to calculate the Australian local magnitude (MLa).

Time Range

August 2023 – August 2024

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-23 16:44:53.182612; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Australia