National Network of Seismic Stations (NNSS) is the most important Slovak infrastructure for monitoring of seismic activity. Its main goal is to monitor and localize earthquakes with macroseismic effects (effects on people, objects, buildings and nature) on the territory of Slovakia. Besides these earthquakes the seismic stations of NNSS record also weaker local earthquakes and other seismic events (e.g. quarry blasts) as well as regional end teleseismic earthquakes and nuclear explosions.
The results of seismic monitoring of the territory of Slovakia and following analyses of seismic records enter into the national seismic database for the territory of Slovakia that has been long-term created at the ESI SAS (former Geophysical Institute of Slovak Academy of Sciences).
The seismic database comprises data on the earthquakes with epicentre on the territory of Slovakia and the earthquakes with epicentre outside Slovakia but with macroseismic effect on the territory of Slovakia. The seismic database is an inevitable part of the seismic hazard assessment for the whole territory of Slovakia (e.g. for the building standards, civil protection activities, etc.) as well as for the economically important areas (e.g. nuclear power plants, water dams, dense populated areas, etc.).
National Network of Seismic Stations consists of 14 seismic stations recording the ground motion velocity. All seismic stations are registered at the International Seismological Centre (ISC) in the Great Britain. Continuous digital records from the seismic stations are transmitted to the Data and Analysis Centre at ESI SAS in Bratislava in a real-time mode, where the data are analysed and archived. Only the oldest seismic station Hurbanovo is, due to historical reasons, equipped with analogue registration on a smoked paper.
International and national cooperation in seismic monitoring
- Data from the National Network of Seismic Stations take part in the standard international data exchange, the national network contributes to several international data centres (e.g. EMSC-CSEM, ORFEUS, ISC) and to the national data centres of many European countries.
- Data and Analysis Centre of the NNSS serves as the National Data Centre of CTBTO.
- Cooperating institutions in Slovakia: Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Informatics of the Comenius University Bratislava; Progseis, Ltd. Trnava.
- Data from the NNSS are provided to the Partial Monitoring System – Geological Factors that is a component of the Monitoring System of the Environment of Slovak Republic.
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