Matterhorn Permafrost: Acoustic and Seismic Monitoring Data

Matterhorn Hörnligrat, Switzerland, at 3500 m elevation is the source for this dataset of acoustic and micro-seismic measurements from steep bedrock permafrost. It contains selected accelerometer and seismometer data in hourly .miniseed files, plus eight time series of threshold-triggered acoustic emission hits. The data were used in a peer-reviewed study on fracture characterization in permafrost.

Use Cases

• [Analyzing fracture activity] based on [threshold-triggered acoustic emission hits from piezoelectric sensors]
• [Characterizing ground motion] based on [accelerometer data (m/s²) from a Wilcoxon sensor with 10-10000 Hz range]
• [Studying seismic noise and events] based on [raw seismometer data in counts from a Lennartz sensor with 1-100 Hz range]
• [Correlating environmental forcing with rockfall precursors] based on [multiple synchronized time series from 2015-2018]

Strengths

• [High temporal resolution and synchronization] Data are split into hourly files and synchronized to a global time reference using GPS with precision cited as <1 μs for accelerometer and <100 μs for seismometer data.
• [Detailed sensor metadata] Descriptions include specific sensor models (e.g., Wilcoxon 728A/T, Lennartz LE-3Dlite MKIII), frequency ranges, and sampling rates (e.g., 1000 sps for seismometer).
• [Peer-reviewed provenance] Data were acquired for a funded project (X-Sense2) and used in a published article in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface.

Limitations

• [Conflicting end date] Sources disagree on the data collection end date, citing both 1 January 2018 and 1 April 2018.
• [Sparse column information] The specific variables within the .miniseed files and the eight CSV time series are not described; column names are listed as 'unknown'.
• [Incomplete metadata] Key details like dataset size (rows, file size) and the exact 'last updated' date are not provided across the sources.

Provenance

Source

University of Zurich, project X-Sense2 (financed by nano-tera.ch).

Collection Method

Field measurements using accelerometers, seismometers, and piezoelectric acoustic emission sensors at the Matterhorn Hörnligrat field site.

Time Range

2015 until 1 April 2018 (conflict: one source states until 1 January 2018).

Geography

Matterhorn Hörnligrat field site, Switzerland, at 3500 meters above sea level.