Great news!
A large seismological dataset (50 TB) pertaining to the Groningen gas field (largest gas field in Europe) has now been published openly by the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI). The data were originally acquired by the field operator, the Nederlandse Aardolie Maatschappij (NAM), who provided the data to KNMI for publishing in the context of the national research infrastructure EPOS-NL.
The data describe measurements made from early 2014 to late 2018, using:
- A flexible geophone network, consisting of 400 surface stations on a grid of 350 by 350 meters. This network was successively deployed in different areas across the Groningen field.
- Downhole monitoring arrays, in the Stedum, Zeerijp and Harkstede wells of the Groningen field. These downhole geophones were located near the reservoir interval at ~3 km depth.
These datasets are truly unique in terms of the high geo-phone density, partially at reservoir depth near earthquake hypocenters, and in being derived from a vast gas field that has been showing Earthquakes since the early ‘90s. Data are provided compressed (total compressed size ~25 TB), and can be downloaded in digestible < 1 TB portions on the KNMI data platform. The EPOS team is now striving to make these data centrally findable via the EPOS central data portal, where it can be found along with other European, solid Earth scientific data.
To all interested seismologists, multi-disciplinary researchers, and/or generally or casually interested researchers: have a look at the presentation given by KNMI data scientist Jarek Bienkowski on this dataset at the EPOS-NL annual meeting held on 8 November, and/or go directly to the data on the KNMI data platform! It’s open!
(image from KNMI website)