BELSHAKE is a research project in Pillar 1 ("Challenges and knowledge of the living and non-living world") of the BRAIN-be 2.0 program funded by the Belgian Science Policy Office. Its objective is to compile a database of earthquake ground motion in Belgium, and to develop the capacity to model it. Read more...
The SEISMOSTORM project aims to make the ROB's analog seismic data openly available to the seismological community following the community-defined storing standards for digital seismic data. This will be achieved by developing image processing and machine learning methodologies to digitize the waveforms from scanned seismograms and transform them into calibrated and time-coded seismic time series. Read more...
GEOCAMB is a four year BELSPO funded-project (project nr: NR B2/191/P1/GEOCAMB) granted after the Pilar 1 BRAIN.be 2.0 call in 2019. The GEOCAMB consortium consists of several federal institutions and universities. This project aims to evaluate the demand for geothermal energy to heat public buildings and to investigate the geothermal potential of the Cambrian bedrock, present below the Flemish and Walloon Brabant provinces and the Brussels region. Read more...
FAULTCOLLAB is a research project in earthquake geology and tectonic geomorphology of active faults in intraplate context between the Seismology-Gravimetry Department of the Royal Observatory of Belgium (ROB) and the Unit of Physical Geography and Quaternary of ULiège (UGPQ) in the frame of the FED-tWIN programme of the Belgian Science Policy Office (BELSPO). Read more...
Monitoring Land Subsidence caused by Groundwater exploitation through gEOdetic measurements (LASUGEO).
Groundwater is a hidden resource, which is quantitatively much more significant than surface waters. Their exploitation and the impacts at the surface created by groundwater withdrawals essentially for human (drinking water) and industrial needs are generally difficult to estimate, monitor and plan. It is difficult to adequately locate and quantitatively appreciate surface impacts, resulting in a lack of awareness and/or evidence regarding the extent of risks and pressures facing the growing groundwater needs. The main objectives of the LASUGEO project are associated to the groundwater exploitation that has hitherto provoked unforeseen land surface movements (subsidence sometimes followed by a non-elastic rebound during the aquifer recharge).
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The EPOS-BE project is a four year BELSPO-funded project (project nr: FSIRI/33/EP1) and was created as Belgium's contribution to the European Plate Observing System (EPOS). Under this umbrella, the projected long-term plan aims to combine forces of various research infrastructures of different Earth Science institutes from all over Europe. The idea is to unify data products and combine data infrastructures, enabling much faster and easier multilateral data exchange. One of the goals of the Royal Observatory of Belgium is to contribute to EPOS as a GNSS and seismic data provider. Read more...
The IS-Noise project aims at studying the applicability of seismic noise-based techniques for monitoring different targets in Iceland: volcanoes, geothermal areas and fault zones. Read more...
The LARGE-MEM project is a small-scale but dense noise-based study aiming at better understanding rainfall and groundwater storage effects on seismic velocities measured by a dense seismic network. The goal of LARGE-MEM is to demonstrate that the actual quantity and location of water in the subsurface can be estimated from measurements using a LargeN array. To achieve this, the data from superconducting and absolute gravimeters located in a gallery under the study site will be used to measure precisely the mass of water sampled by the seismic waves. Read more...
The AcceleROB project aims at deploying 90 low-cost accelerometric stations in Belgium in order to measure the real ground motion whenever a larger-than-usual earthquake will strike. "AcceleROB" is an acronym for "Accelerometric station of the Royal Observatory of Belgium" (Seismology-Gravimetry service). A complete AcceleROB includes: a RaspberryPi microcomputer, a power supply, a network cable, a JoyWarrior Accelerometer and a tripod brick (a clean one, not like on the picture at the right!). This setup allows installing the sensor in basements without the need to leave a computer permanently switched on. The station is low-consumption: less than 3 Watts (7 W with the Devolo) and low-bandwidth: around 365 bytes per second (30MB/day)! Read more...
Karst Aquifer ReseArch by Geophysics (KARAG) project is a research project resulting from the collaboration of 3 belgian institutes (University of Namur, University of Mons and Royal observatory of Belgium), and U. Luxembourg. This 4 years project that started in July 2013 is supported by the Fund for Scientific Research – FNRS from the Wallonia-Brussels Federation. Read more...
Paleoseismologic trench study of the Geleen fault in Rotem and the Rauw fault in Mol (Belgium). Read more...
Why do large earthquakes not always occur at regular time interval on a given fault? Present-day physical models on repeating ruptures are poorly constrained and can yield inconsistent predictions. To be able to anticipate future seismic catastrophe, we need to measure and understand the irregularities in the seismic cycle. Read more...
