GeoShake Is Now in the FDSN Data Centre Registry

Two administrative events, ten days apart, change how a seismologist can find and cite this network. Neither makes the sensors any better. This post says what changed, what exactly is on offer, and, at some length, what is not.

What happened, on which dates

27 August 2026. The FDSN approved our network code. GW is now a permanent, registered code, listed as GeoShake Global Seismic Network, with the network DOI 10.7914/ft1b-4x43. The network registry entry is public.

6 September 2026. GeoShake was added to the FDSN data centre registry as GEOSHAKE. The entry declares the three services we operate: station metadata, an event catalogue and a real-time SeedLink feed.

Until August, a researcher had to take our word for the network code and had no stable object to cite. Now there is a registered code, a DOI that resolves to the network, and a registry entry that tells standard software where the services live.

What the FDSN registries are, and why they matter

The International Federation of Digital Seismograph Networks coordinates what lets seismological software from different institutions interoperate: network codes, the StationXML and QuakeML formats, and the fdsnws web-service specifications that ObsPy, jAmaSeis, SWARM and most research tooling speak. Two of its registries matter here.

The network registry assigns network codes. A code we had chosen ourselves could collide with someone else's, and nobody could cite it with confidence. A registered code with a DOI settles both: GW is ours, and a paper can point at the network as a citable object.

The data centre registry lists organisations that run FDSN-style services, with the address of each service. Its use is discovery: client software and federated catalogues can read the entry and learn where a network's metadata, events and real-time feed are, without emailing us. As of 6 September 2026 it lists 33 data centres, EarthScope (IRIS), GEOFON, ORFEUS and Raspberry Shake among them; now GEOSHAKE too.

One thing the entry is not: a quality certification. The FDSN checks that the declared services exist and answer in the standard formats. It does not calibrate anyone's sensors, review anyone's detections or vouch for anyone's data. Being on the list says these services are here, in this format, and nothing more.

What is in the entry

Three services, all anonymous, no key, CC BY 4.0, rate-limited to 100 requests per 5 minutes per IP as abuse protection.

• fdsnws-station-1 — https://api.geoshake.org/fdsnws/station/1/ — StationXML 1.1. level=response returns a nominal sensitivity, explained below.
• fdsnws-event-1 — https://api.geoshake.org/fdsnws/event/1/ — QuakeML 1.2.
• seedlink-4 — seedlink.geoshake.org:18000 — RingServer 4.5.4, SeedLink 3.1 and 4.0.

With ObsPy, point the FDSN client at the base URL:

from obspy.clients.fdsn import Client

client = Client(base_url="https://api.geoshake.org")
inv = client.get_stations(network="GW", level="channel")   # StationXML -> Inventory
cat = client.get_events(limit=10)                            # QuakeML -> Catalog

Or with curl:

curl "https://api.geoshake.org/fdsnws/station/1/query?network=GW&format=text"
curl "https://api.geoshake.org/fdsnws/event/1/query?limit=100&format=xml" -o catalog.quakeml

As of 6 September 2026 the network has eight live stations, in Türkiye (Antalya, Niğde, İstanbul) and New Zealand (Queenstown). Each is a GeoShake T1: an uncalibrated MEMS accelerometer (LSM6DSO) in a home, on a domestic internet connection.

What is not in the entry, and other limits

• No fdsnws-dataselect. You cannot request archived waveforms by time window. Waveforms are available live over SeedLink, and triggered bursts as SAC files from station pages. That is all.
• No archive at IRIS/EarthScope or any other data centre. What we serve is what exists; there is no second copy.
• Uncalibrated sensors, nominal response. The figure served at level=response comes from the sensor datasheet, counts = m/s² × 10⁶. It is not a per-unit calibration: no shake-table test, no mounting correction, no poles/zeros. Amplitudes are indicative, not metrologically traceable.
• Horizontal azimuth is unknown. EN1 and EN2 are horizontal and orthogonal, but the devices carry no magnetometer, so StationXML deliberately publishes no Azimuth for them. Do not rotate them into north and east; that information does not exist. ENZ is true vertical (Dip -90), from gravity.
• LNZ is a scalar envelope, not a component. Each 1 sps sample is the peak vector magnitude of acceleration over that second. It never crosses zero and has no direction. ENZ, EN1 and EN2 are genuine components, published only while a station is triggered.
• "Magnitude" in the QuakeML is a PGA-derived MMI intensity, labelled as such. There is no ML or Mw, and no depth estimate.
• Not a warning system. This is a community network of volunteer-hosted devices. Do not use it for life-safety decisions.

How to cite

If your work uses GeoShake waveforms or station metadata, cite the network with the text the FDSN issued, unchanged:

GeoShake (2026): GeoShake Global Seismic Network. International Federation of Digital Seismograph Networks. Dataset/Seismic Network. https://doi.org/10.7914/ft1b-4x43

Catalogue snapshots are archived separately on Zenodo with their own DOI. That identifier describes a snapshot of the event list, not the network; do not swap the two in a citation.

What is next

• fdsnws-dataselect is under evaluation. It requires a waveform archive we do not keep today, so there is no date to give.
• An ObsPy shortcut. A patch adding GEOSHAKE to the FDSN client's list of known data centres is ready on our side; it has not been submitted yet. Until it is merged, use base_url as shown above.

The full technical description, including what every channel contains, is on the open data page. If something there does not match what the services return, tell us; that is the report we most want.