Azerbaijan installing new seismic station in Gazakh region
By Aynur Jafarova
The Cybernetics Institute under the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences has started the installation of a new station of monitoring system for earthquake prediction in Gazakh region of Azerbaijan.
The new station will be put into operation in a short period.
Currently, six seismic stations, detecting anomalous seismic processes and conducting their monitoring, operate in Azerbaijan. The stations are installed in the Gum Adasi island, Neftchala, Naftalan, Shirvan, Siyazan, as well as in Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic.
The Cybernetics Institute also plans to launch seismic stations in Khudat and Yalama as well as two stations in Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic (in Nehram and Boyuk Duz villages).
The new seismic stations are intended to cover larger territory of the country to determine the epicenters of earthquakes with high exactness.
The operating stations are able to fix anomalous seismic processes 15 - 20 hours before their surface demonstration.
The first seismic station in Azerbaijan was established in 1902 in Baku. Afterwards, seismic stations were set up in different areas in Azerbaijan, including Balakhany, Shamakhi, Ganja, Nakhchivan, Lankaran, Chilov Island and Mingachevir.
Starting from 2003 earthquakes have been monitored in Azerbaijan.
Earlier Azerbaijan started applying a digital kinemetrics system. 14 modern digital seismic telemetry stations of the US Kinemetrics company were purchased.
Such stations have been installed in numerous regions of Azerbaijan. Besides, the Azerbaijani government purchased 7 additional sets of telemetry stations of the Kinemetrics company in 2008 and 10 in 2010, bringing the total number of telemetry stations of this type to 31.
Acquired data are transmitted to the seismic data center in Baku through a satellite communication system and analyzed with the use of special software.