The Seismology Research Centre, or SRC, was founded in 1976 in the northern suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. It was part of RMIT University until 2002 when it was acquired by private industry, now owned by ESS Earth Sciences.
The SRC operates the largest private earthquake observatory network in the world, and operates the greatest number of earthquake seismograph stations in Australia. Our clients include many government and private organisations that require rapid notifications of earthquake epicentre locations and magnitudes to aid in the emergency management of their assets and infrastructure.
Our staff have installed seismographs all over the world, provided training in basic seismology, hardware and software operation and maintenance, and have provided expert advice on the seismological inputs to many major engineering projects – including historic buildings, dams, and coal, gas, nuclear and hydro power stations.
The research activities we undertake focus in three main areas:
- exploring user-friendly methods of rapid earthquake data processing, and implementing this in the development of new software
- adapting new technologies into digital seismographs for earthquake, blast and vibration recording
- assessment of earthquake hazard for sites in Australia and globally, to determine probabilistic estimates of ground motion
