An experimental version of a TauP Webservice is now available as a NERIES Portal Resource. It is currently used by the Wave eXp portlet in order to calculate the seismic travel times of P and S phases from the sources to all the selected stations.

The Wave eXp, thanks to the TauP Webservice, allows the user to specify the velocity model that must be used for the travel time calculation. Three models are already embedded into the service itself, but custom models can be also specified by the user who can provide the model name and the URL where the model file can be downloaded.

If you want to share your velocity model, just add (whereas you have the proper rights, otherwise ask to get those!) your "Velocity Model" resources into the QuakeML tab of the SMI Portlet, by filling in the form with the requested information. It will be listed between the "Available Models" directly within the Wave eXp portlet.

The WSDL of the experimental TauP webservice can be found always through the SMI Portlet, looking at the "Webservice" Data Resources.

Please leave a comment for any question or remarks.

Edinburgh (UK), 6-7 November 2008

The Research Infrastructure project NERIES is developing a comprehensive portal providing access to a wide variety of earthquake seismological data in Europe and its surroundings. An α-version, mering parametric data from the EMSC with waveform data from the European Integrated Distributed Archive (EIDA) is currently beign tested by a selected users group. At this stage the NERIES development team is planning the next development steps of the portal, which should include different data and application tools. For this purpose the NERIES team joined forces with IT-specialists from the University of Edingburgh (The UK National e-Science Centre, School of Informatics and EPCC coordinating the ADMIRE project for data mining and integration) to organise a brainstorming meeting. The Edingburgh e-Science Institute will host this meeting.

Goal brainstorming session
Promote a discussion between IT-specialists, seismologists (academics, students, observatories, software developers) and the NERIES developments team to map the needs and technical possibilities for an innovative useful European-scale web-service for seismological earthquake data. The outcome is expected to be two-fold:

1. A short-term program with a number of proposals for specific web applications. After the meeting these will be worked out with the NERIES developments team in collaboration with IT specialists into a concrete workplan for implementation into the NERIES portal.
2. A long-term strategy for user friendly portal developments integrating relevant IT developments and seismological software tools.

Limited financial supports is available for non-NERIES participants.

Prospective participants
We expect participation from experienced seismologists and earth scientists using seismological earthquake data, students in seismology and IT and NERIES activity leaders and participants. We aim at a meeting with a maximum of 40-50 participants.

Brainstorming meeting preparations
Submitting ideas for portal developments: members of the seismological community are encouraged to submit a proposal for a new web service. We particularly encourage Master and PhD students in earth sciences to submit proposals of innovative services to access and process earthquake seismological data. These proposals will be made publicly accessible on the NERIES web pages and distributed to the meeting participants.

Registration (and practicalities)
The registration form and specific meeting details can be found on: http://www.nesc.ac.uk/esi/events/920/ (UK National e-Science Center).

Deadline
30 October 2008: registration deadline

The organisers
NERIES - EC I3 project 'Network of Research Infrastructures for European Seismology'
ADMIRE - EC Theme ICT project 'Advanced Data Mining and Integration Research for Europe'
ORFEUS - Observatories and Research Facilities for European Seismology
EMSC - European-Mediterranean Seismological Center
EPCC - University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre
NESC - University of Edinburgh, Research Group of the UK national e-Science Centre