Getting Started

For the impatient

If you have seismic recordings in miniSEED format (e.g., traces.mseed), metadata in StationXML format (e.g., station.xml) and event information in QuakeML format (e.g., event.xml), then:

Generate a config file via source_spec -S;
Edit the config file variable station_metadata to point to station.xml file;
Run source_spec -t traces.mseed -q event.xml.

Note

Note that the default config parameters are suited for a M<5 earthquake recorded within ~100 km. Adjust win_length, noise_pre_time, and the frequency bands (bp_freqmin_*, bp_freqmax_*, freq1_*, freq2_*) according to your setup.

Command line arguments

After successfully installed SourceSpec (see Installation), you can get help on the command line arguments used by each code by typing from your terminal:

source_spec -h

(or source_model -h, or source_residuals -h).

source_spec and source_model require you to provide the path to seismic traces via the --trace_path command line argument (see File Formats).

Information on the seismic event can be stored in the trace header (SAC format), or provided through a QuakeML file (--qmlfile) or a HYPO71 or HYPOINVERSE-2000 file (--hypocenter). See File Formats for more information on the supported file formats.

Configuration file

source_spec and source_model require a configuration file. The default file name is source_spec.conf, other file names can be specified via the --configfile command line argument.

You can generate a sample configuration file through:

source_spec -S

Take your time to go through the generated configuration file (named source_spec.conf): the comments within the file will guide you on how to set up the different parameters.

More details are in section Configuration File.