| Abstract: | The German Regional Seismic Network (GRSN) comprizes now 16 digital broadband stations equipped with Wieland-Streckeisen STS-2 seismometers, 24-bit dataloggers and a seismological data center at Erlangen. It covers the whole territory of Germany with station-spacings between 80 km to 240 km. The stations are sited in very different environments ranging from near shore at the Baltic Sea coast up to distances of about 700 km from the coast, both within cities and up to about 10 km away from any major settlement, industry or traffic roads. The underground varies from outcropping hard rocks in Hercynian mountain areas, sedimentary rocks in areas of Mesozoic platform cover to up to 1.5 km unconsolidated Quarternary and Tertiary subsoil. Accordingly, seismic background noise varies in a wide range between the upper and lower bounds of the new global noise model. The noise conditions at the GRSN have been investigated systematically by means of displacement power spectral analysis within the frequency range 10-2 5 for RUE and > 10 for BSEG have been confirmed for frequencies between about 0.6 Hz 3 Hz. Strong lateral velocity and impedance contrasts between the outcropping Triassic/Permian sedimentary rocks and the surrounding unconsolidated Quarternary/Tertiary sediments are shown to be the main cause for the strong noise reduction and signal-to-noise ratio improvement at RUE and can account for about 50% of the noise reduction at BSEG. |
