IASPEI School

  • IASPEI  School is organised in the week before the IASPEI Scientific Assemblies and the IUGG General Assemblies with the aim of providing excellent early career scientists with a good basic understanding of a wide range of the scientific topics covered by IASPEI. The IASPEI sponsored participants include PhD students or young Post-Docs who are selected from nominations by the IASPEI Commission on Education and Outreach[1] . Geographical and gender diversity are additional criteria for the choice of students as well as scientific excellence. Lectures on a broad range of IASPEI topics are given by distinguished international experts in the fields, with accompanying practical sessions.

    The IASPEI Early Career Scientists School  (ECSS) will be held from August 25 – 30 2025 in Lisbon, Portugal, just before the IAGA/IASPEI Joint Scientific Meeting 2025 (August 31 – September 5).

    This year, the IASPEI ECSS will tackle the most recent challenges in Seismological Data and will address (1) Beneath the Waves: Advancing OBS Knowledge from Deployment to Data (2) Exploitation on Data legacy – Joint IAGA – IASPEI session; (3) Cross-disciplinary research in solid Earth science using EPOS infrastructure; (4) Generating, using and managing DAS & SOP data.

    How to apply:

    Students interested in participating should apply to the Comission on Education and Outreach. See here a more complete description of the IASPEI ECSS schedule and program.  Please use the application form[1] and send your application to rajusarkar.iaspei@gmail.com, kindly including iaspei@norsar.no in CC to ensure all relevant parties are informed.

    Eligibility:

    Post-graduate students and Early Career Scientists

    Topics

    (1) OBS DATA

    Beneath the Waves: Advancing OBS Knowledge from Deployment to Data

    Summary:

    This workshop aims to bring together researchers, students, and OBS experts to deepen their understanding of ocean-bottom seismometers (OBS) and their diverse applications. We will focus on best practices, deployment challenges, data analysis, data accessibility, and interaction with data centres. Activities include presentations, hands-on sessions (e.g., assembling an OBS), and data processing. The goal is to promote collaboration, standardise OBS data practices, and lay the groundwork for future workshops focusing on connected topics like passive seismology, Mermaids, and active seismic studies.

    (2) Legacy Data

    Exploitation on Data legacy – Joint IAGA – IASPEI session

    Summary:

    Young students and researchers are used to digital data; but just 40 years ago most data were acquired in analogue form. Analogue geophysical datasets can often cover a period of a century or longer. Most of the basic discoveries in seismological and geomagnetic research were obtained from analogue data. They continue to be useful in the study of past events (such as extremes) and to build up long series for statistic evaluation. Going back into the past, information in seismic and magnetic datasets not originally intended as scientific use can also be successfully extracted.

    However, analogue data have many specific subtleties which often means they cannot be directly translated into digital form and typically need some preparation and preprocessing before conversion to a modern digital format.

    This short joint session is intended to give a first introduction to the use of analogue data. Main topics will be:

    – Basic available data (seismograms, magnetograms).

    – Evolution of instrumentation

    – Where they can be found (databases). Websites, Metadata.

    – Digitization (scan, vectorization, other uses)

    – Instrument transfer function. Time correction

    – Applications (earthquakes, geomagnetic storms, other events)

    (3) EPOS Data Portal

    Cross-disciplinary research in solid Earth science using EPOS infrastructure

    Summary:

    The course will provide an introduction of the European Plate Observing system (EPOS) ecosystem, demonstration of the EPOS Data Portal and hands-on training by following a scientific use case using the online portal and VRE. It is expected that participants have scientific background in solid Earth science and basic knowledge of Python programming language.

    (4) DAS & SOP Data

    Generating, using and managing DAS & SOP data

    Summary:

    SUBMERSE (SUBMarine cablEs for ReSearch and Exploration) is an EU-funded project that is turning existing submarine telecommunication cables into an international fiber-optic sensing network, with innovative applications in Earth and environmental sciences. One of the solutions adopted, Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS), has been successfully percolating from industry to seismological research for nearly a decade. In fact, when used in submarine cables, DAS can extend the Earth and Ocean monitoring to ~100 km. Another emerging and groundbreaking technology is the State of Polarization (SOP), which can be combined with DAS instrumentation. SOP has the advantage of exploiting the whole cable, thus allowing monitoring of seismic activities, seabed interactions, and oceanographic phenomena also in the deep ocean. The main advantage provided by the SUBMERSE approach to SOP is the ability to capture and transmit acquired data at full sampling frequency for on-the-fly processing.

    Participants will be introduced to the new research opportunities in Earth monitoring offered by DAS and SOP sensing equipment, including key aspects of their settings and parameters. In the practical session of the training, participants will discover how to collect, manage, access, process and visualize DAS and SOP data generated by live examples or during previous projects.