The Euro-Mediterranean Bulletin; a comprehensive seismological bulletin at regional scale

The Euro-Mediterranean Seismological Center (EMSC) is in charge of collecting parametric data to operate a real-time information and alert system for potentially damaging earthquakes and to publish a comprehensive seismological bulletin for the Euro-Mediterranean region. The region is a seismically active area associated with a complex tectonic structure (Dercourt et al. 1986) but monitored by numerous local or national seismological networks. To obtain a coherent image of the seismicity, it is important to gather and merge data from all countries. The Euro-Mediterranean bulletin computed at the EMSC therefore provides a coherent source of information for the scientific community, for seismic hazard studies, or for tomographic and tectonophysic studies. At the global scale, the three main seismological bulletins are produced by the International Seismological Centre (ISC), the International Data Center (IDC), and the National Earthquake Information Center of the United States (NEIC). The ISC produces a worldwide and exhaustive bulletin with a two-year delay and is considered the most comprehensive database (Willemann et al. 2001). The ISC is a nongovernmental and nonprofit organization mostly funded by academic institutions; it works closely with the International Association of Seismology and Physics of the Earth's Interior (IASPEI). Until 2001, the ISC bulletin location had been solely based on P arrivals. After 2001, all phases have been included in the location. The magnitude completeness varies among regions, but the ISC aims to report all events as well as review and relocate those recorded by more than one network. In addition to known earthquake location determination, the ISC searches for events unidentified by the local networks by associating groups of phases from different agencies. The other global bulletin available is provided by the NEIC, which provides three bulletin publications: the Quick Epicenter Determinations (QED), produced daily; and the Preliminary Determination of Epicenters (PDE), produced both weekly …