○
Identifying and Correcting Timing Errors at
Seismic Stations in and around Iran
by Ellen M. Syracuse, W. Scott Phillips, Monica Maceira, and Michael
L. Begnaud
ABSTRACT
A fundamental component of seismic research is the use of
phase arrival times, which are central to event location, Earth
model development, and phase identification, as well as derived
products. Hence, the accuracy of arrival times is crucial. How-
ever, errors in the timing of seismic waveforms and the arrival
times based on them may go unidentified by the end user, par-
ticularly when seismic data are shared between different organ-
izations. Here, we present a method used to analyze travel-time
residuals for stations in and around Iran to identify time peri-
ods that are likely to contain station timing problems. For the
14 stations with the strongest evidence of timing errors lasting
one month or longer, timing corrections are proposed to ad-
dress the problematic time periods. Two additional stations are
identified with incorrect locations in the International Registry
of Seismograph Stations, and one is found to have erroneously
reported arrival times in 2011.
Electronic Supplement: Figures showing residual distributions
over time and associated P-wave ray paths.
INTRODUCTION
Many seismological tools rely on the accurate timing of data.
Global Positioning System (GPS) clocks, which are accurate to
100 ns (see Data and Resources), are now the standard for
keeping time at seismic stations. Ideally, this should result
in accuracy that is at least 105 times higher than typical sample
rates, but in reality, station timing problems commonly degrade
the quality of seismic datasets, often without the knowledge of
users. Because shared data repositories are a fundamental data
source for the seismic community (e.g., the Bulletin of the
International Seismological Centre [ISC], the Data Manage-
ment Center at the Incorporated Research Institutions for
Seismology [IRIS], the European Integrated Data Archive
at the Observatories and Research Facilities for European Seis-
mology [ORFEUS]), even if data operators are aware of issues
with data quality, there is no clear way to convey this informa-
tion to the end user.
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Suspected problems with station timing can be found in a
variety of ways. The simplest way of identifying a potential
timing problem, which is utilized in this study, is by monitoring
temporal changes in travel-time residuals on a station-by-sta-
tion basis (e.g., Röhm et al., 1999). For particular distributions
of earthquakes recorded by a pair of stations, changes in the
difference between the arrival times recorded at the two sta-
tions for a single earthquake can reveal timing errors (Rowe
et al., 2003; Gibbons, 2006). These methods have the advan-
tage of not requiring the user to have access to full waveform
data. If waveform data are available, analysis of fundamental-
mode surface-wave dispersion between pairs of stations can be
used to identify problems with timing, location, or polarity
(Weidle et al., 2013). These three methods rely on analyzing
signals from earthquakes, limiting the ability to identify short
intervals (less than a day to multiple weeks) of concern. To
identify more ephemeral timing changes or to identify the on-
set of a timing change with greater precision, changes in the
timing of the Green’s function resulting from the cross corre-
lation of microseismic noise over time between pairs of stations
can be analyzed (Koch and Stammler, 2003; Sens-Schön-
felder, 2008).
Apparent timing problems can have a variety of sources
that fall into four categories: (1) actual timing problems, (2) sta-
tion location misinformation, (3) problems related to phase
identification, and (4) Earth structure changes. Legitimate tim-
ing problems can occur when the clock is unable to lock with a
GPS satellite for a prolonged period of time, perhaps following
station vandalism (e.g., Owens et al., 1993). Stations with tele-
metered data may incur a delay (e.g., Chang et al., 2012) that
may not be properly corrected for at the archiving location. If
there is a problem with the clock at the telemetry repeater,
multiple stations within a network may be similarly affected.
Leap seconds have been inserted to UTC in some years since
1972, either following 30 June or 31 December, to account for
changes in Earth’s rotational speed over time. Because GPS-
based times do not include leap seconds, they need to be cor-
rected before their insertion; not correcting for them may leave
GPS clock times 1 s fast with respect to UTC.
November/December 2017 doi: 10.1785/0220170113

40°
0 10 20 30
Earthquake depth (km)
35°
30°
25°
40° 45° 50° 55° 60°
▴ Figure 1. Map of stations and sources used in this study.
Earthquakes are shaded by depth. Small gray triangles show sta-
tions with no identified timing or location errors. White triangles
show stations with identified timing errors. Squares show stations
with identified location errors (corrected locations plotted here).
The diamond shows Station SHGR, which appears to be affected
by misassociated arrivals.
Station location misinformation may occur if a station is
moved without updating the coordinates of the station. Röhm
et al. (1999) found that within the ISC Bulletin, several sta-
tions show a change in mean residual following a data gap,
which may result from station down time while it is being
moved. The ISC does report multiple sets of coordinates
for some stations through time, but it is often unclear if these
changes in coordinates are due to the station being physically
moved or due to the initially reported locations being incor-
rect. Alternatively, a station location may be incorrectly re-
ported for the entire duration of data from a station.
Problems related to phase identification may arise if there
is a change in the noise level at a station. Because higher levels
of noise can obscure the onset of a phase, a phase arrival may be
picked later than its actual onset when noise levels are elevated.
Alternatively, the use of a noncausal filter can cause phase on-
sets to be identified too early. Changes in how data are dissemi-
nated may also lead to apparent timing shifts (Weidle et al.,
2013), and changes in equipment (e.g., upgrading from a
short-period to a broadband sensor) will affect the waveforms
recorded, which may cause an apparent shift when phases are
identified.
Changes in the subsurface beneath a station can also lead
to apparent timing changes. For example, seasonal changes in
groundwater at Merapi Volcano have been tied to 10% changes
in seismic velocity at some depths (Sens-Schönfelder and We-
gler, 2006), which may mimic clock drift. Velocity changes have
also been identified via progressive phase delay between earth-
quake doublets in central California and are also thought to
result from near-station groundwater changes because of the
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predominance of basin-trapped waves in the coda (Phillips
and Aki, 1986).
Analysis of arrival-time data from the ISC for stations and
earthquakes in the Iran region reveals that timing inconsisten-
cies are likely to be present at several stations. We identify af-
fected stations and time periods, and present corrections that
can be applied to address these problems in all but one case.
DATA AND METHODS
First-arrival times for P and S phases were downloaded from
the ISC database (see Data and Resources) for stations and
earthquakes occurring between 2000 and 2016 within the
study region (Fig. 1). Only earthquakes with 10 or more P-
arrival times recorded at these stations are retained. This results
in a dataset consisting of 16,500 earthquakes, and 333,000 P-
arrival times and 105,000 S-arrival times recorded at 299
stations.
These earthquakes are relocated using a modified version
of the algorithm tomoDD (Zhang and Thurber, 2003, 2006)
using a 3D P- and S-wave velocity model for the region devel-
oped by Maceira et al. (2016) from the joint inversion of seis-
mic arrival times, surface-wave dispersion, and gravity data. We
note that, although similar and overlapping in many cases, the
datasets used in this study and Maceira et al. (2016) differ in
that publicly available data of all qualities are included in this
study, whereas the Maceira et al. (2016) study includes only
earthquakes with expected epicentral accuracies of 50 km or
better from a longer time period. The use of the ISC dataset
is intended to demonstrate that the method of error identifi-
cation described in this study can be applied to readily available
arrival-time catalogs. We also note that similar results, albeit
with larger travel-time residuals and slightly more residual scat-
ter, are obtained if a 1D velocity model is used for relocation, as
opposed to the 3D model used here. Although differential
travel times for pairs of earthquakes recorded at the same sta-
tion are typically used in the tomoDD algorithm, they are
omitted here so that an earthquake location resulting from data
recorded by stations not containing any timing errors during
the earthquake is unaffected by possible timing errors at other
times during the study period. Because bad data are the focus of
this study, data are weighted based on only their estimated pick
uncertainty (i.e., less reported precision for an arrival time im-
plies a larger pick uncertainty), and there is no maximum al-
lowable residual in the inversion.
After relocation, earthquake origin time versus P-wave
residual is plotted for each station (Fig. 2). Stations with no
obvious timing problems (Fig. 2a) have residuals with a con-
stant moving-window average and scatter over time. Stations
with a small number of arrivals are not considered further, due
to too few data points for meaningful statistics. Stations that
appear to have clock drift (Fig. 2b) cannot be corrected for in a
straightforward manner (see the AKDM, GURO, and MLAZ
section). One station (see the SHGR section) appears to have
residuals that generally follow an expected distribution but has
a period with some large residuals. Stations with large devia-
Volume 88, Number 6 November/December 2017 1473
 (a) (c) 60
6
40
4
Residual (s)

2 20

0 0

–2 –20
–4
–40
–6 IBAF SHGR
–60
2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016

(b) 8 (d) 8
6 6
4 4
Residual (s)

2 2
0 0
–2 –2
–4 –4
–6 –6
AKDM IRAZ
–8 –8
2012 2014 2016 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016
Year Year
▴ Figure 2. Examples of the distribution of P-wave residuals over time for (a) a station with no apparent timing errors (Station IBAF,
located at 31.5902° N, 55.56730° E), (b) a station with apparent clock drift over multiple years (AKDM, located at 38.3285° N, 42.98000° E),
(c) a station with erroneously reported arrival times (Station SHGR, located at 32.1083° N, 48.80130° E), and (d) a station with suspected
timing errors from June 2005 through September 2006 (Station IRAZ, located at 35.4046° N, 49.92900° E). The gray line shows the 20-point
moving average of residuals through time.

tions in moving-window average over time (≳1 s) are investi-
gated further (Fig. 2d and Ⓔ Figs. S1–S14, available in the
electronic supplement to this article). For these stations requir-
ing further investigation, their operation is separated into a
background time period and one or more time periods of in-
terest. The background time period is considered to contain no
timing error and is either the longest time period with a con-
stant moving-average residual or the time period with the
smallest average residual; in most cases, these two definitions
give the same background time period. The time period of in-
terest contains residuals for which moving average deviates
from the background and is suspected of containing a persis-
tent timing error. Two additional stations with uniformly large
scatter in residuals over time are also investigated (Ⓔ Figs. S15
and S16).
For each station requiring further investigation, the
source–station distribution is plotted, with ray paths during
the time period of interest highlighted. In some cases, the time
period of interest corresponds to an isolated swarm of earth-
quakes (Fig. 3a). For such cases, the residual deviations during
the time period are likely due to these earthquakes being poorly
located or the velocity model used for relocation poorly rep-
resenting earth structure along these paths; these stations are
removed from further consideration.
Following this analysis, 14 stations remain, with time peri-
ods of interest ranging from two months to three years. If clock
errors do exist at these stations, P- and S-wave residuals during
a time period of interest should be offset by the same amount
from the background. However, the large scatter in S-wave re-
siduals relative to P-wave residuals, combined with a lack of S-
wave arrival data for many time periods of interest, prevents the
comparison of P-wave residuals over time to S-wave residuals
over time from yielding meaningful results.
For the remaining 14 stations, timing corrections are cal-
culated for the time periods of interest, based on the concept of
travel-time station corrections. Typically, a travel-time station
correction is calculated to accommodate for the effect of near-
station velocity structure that is unaccounted for in a broader
velocity model or to approximate the effect of the elevation of
the station, if elevation is not directly accounted for in the ana-

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 (a)40°
35°
3 rection are from this final inversion.
Residual (s)
2
30°
1
0 Station Timing Corrections
SZD1
25°
(b)40°
35°
10
8 during its background time period is 0 s. Figures showing P-
Residual (s)
6 wave residuals over time before and after correction and ray
30°
4
2 in Ⓔ Figures S1–S14, ordered alphabetically by station name.
0
IRAZ
25°
40° 45° 50° 55° 60°
▴ Figure 3. Examples of ray paths for potential periods of inter-
est for stations where (a) there is a strong correlation between
source location and residual, indicating that further investigation
is not required (Station SZD1, 29.4863° N, 60.86550° E) and
(b) residual is independent of source location, prompting further
investigation (Station IRAZ). Small circles show the locations of
all earthquakes recorded at the given station, and line shade in-
dicates the magnitude of the residual. The color version of this
figure is available only in the electronic edition.
lytical method being used. The correction can differ for P and S
waves, and it typically applies to the entire duration of the
dataset.
For each time period of interest, a timing correction is
calculated. This is done by creating a dummy station for each
time period of interest and attributing the affected arrivals to
the appropriate new station. Then, station corrections are cal-
culated for all dummy stations in a joint inversion for earth-
quake location and station correction. This inversion uses a
modified version of the algorithm used for the initial residual
calculation. Here, it is modified to calculate station corrections
for stations selected by the user, that is, only the new dummy
stations. For each selected station, a single correction is calcu-
lated to apply to both P and S arrivals by including both phases
in the inversion. This inversion is only continued for one iter-
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ation, which is found to yield the best results. For stations with
identified location errors (see description in the Station Loca-
tion Corrections section), the corrected locations are used in
this inversion. After station corrections are determined, they
are applied and held fixed in a separate final inversion for
source location only; residuals reported for stations after cor-
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The results of the correction calculations are given in Table 1
and are described below for each station. Positive corrections
indicate that the station clock was modeled as being slow dur-
ing the time period of interest, and negative corrections indi-
cate that it was modeled as being fast. Corrections should be
added to the arrivals from an affected station during time peri-
ods of interest. Background information for each station is ob-
tained from the International Registry of Seismograph
Stations, maintained by the ISC (see Data and Resources).
For all stations discussed here, the average residual for a station
paths for the corresponding time period of interest are given
ASAO, NASN, and THKV
Station ASAO is located near Ashtian, Markazi Province, Iran;
Station NASN is located near Nain, Isfahan Province, Iran;
and Station THKV is located near Karaj, Alborz Province,
Iran. Data for these three stations have been reported to
the ISC since 2001 (Ⓔ Figs. S1, S11, and S13). These stations
have average residuals of −0:7 to −4:3 s prior to 2004. Addi-
tionally, arrivals are less frequently reported for the earlier time
periods of interest than for 2004 and later. This reduction in
residuals, increase in pick frequency, and apparent shift in sta-
tion timing correspond to the replacement of digitizers at these
three stations that were known to have had timing issues (E.
Bergman, personal comm., 2017). The corrections for ASAO
and THKV are similar, 4.5 and 4.2 s, respectively. The calcu-
lated correction for NASN is 7.1 s, although the relatively small
number of arrivals for the time period of interest leads to a
relatively large uncertainty in the corrections. Following the
correction, the mean residual for the period of interest at each
of these three stations is 0.6 s or less.
BASK
Station BASK is located near Baskale, Van Province, Turkey,
and data have been reported to the ISC between mid-2011
and mid-2015 (Ⓔ Fig. S2). For earthquakes from January
through April 2012, the average uncorrected residual at BASK
is −1:3 s, with almost no earthquakes having positive P-wave
residuals. Although most earthquakes in the time period of in-
terest did occur in a similar area to the northwest of the station,
P-wave residuals for stations at all azimuths are negative during
Volume 88, Number 6 November/December 2017 1475
 Table 1
Results of the Correction Calculations
Latitude Longitude Elevation T1 T2 Correction Meanpt rmspt rmspa Meanft rmsft rmsfa
Station (°) (°) (m) (yyyy/mm) (yyyy/mm) (s) (s) (s) (s) (s) (s) (s)
AKDM 38.3285 42.98000 1662 — — — — — 1.079 — — —
ASAO 34.5480 50.02531 2217 2000/01 2003/12 2.5 −1.829 3.635 2.430 −0.233 2.960 2.413
BASK 38.0523 44.00400 1931 2012/01 2012/04 2.0 −1.331 1.639 4.048 −0.067 0.926 4.023
BNDS 27.3993 56.17130 1500 2012/04 2014/06 3.5 −2.102 3.035 2.190 −0.100 2.176 2.018
GURO 38.5509 42.03220 1388 — — — — — 1.273 — — —
HAKT 37.5579 43.70710 2153 2007/11 2008/03 −5.8 3.699 5.473 2.050 0.150 4.137 1.944
HAKT 37.5579 43.70710 2153 2011/01 2011/02 −7.1 4.480 5.259 2.050 0.105 1.940 1.944
HKZM 35.3775 48.90450 2334 2012/01 2012/02 −3.5 2.735 2.966 1.290 0.237 0.908 0.945
IGAR 32.4063 52.04740 1910 2005/01 2005/12 1.6 −1.306 2.640 1.965 0.185 2.256 1.921
IHSH 37.3050 47.26360 2147 — — — — — 8.493 — — 2.280
IKLH 33.3190 51.57870 2185 2005/01 2005/12 1.5 −1.516 2.718 2.590 0.175 2.217 2.449
IKRD 36.7759 59.51460 2245 — — — — — 8.358 — — 3.214
IPIR 32.6841 50.89170 2587 2005/01 2005/12 1.6 −1.544 2.747 2.256 0.023 2.230 2.170
IRAZ 35.4046 49.92900 1920 2005/06 2006/09 −2.0 3.943 6.124 2.991 0.115 4.541 2.622
IZEF 32.8956 52.32910 2321 2005/01 2005/12 1.5 −1.366 2.813 2.683 0.207 2.447 2.564
MLAZ 39.1410 42.54950 1581 — — — — — 1.075 — — —
NASN 32.7990 52.80800 2800 2000/01 2003/12 2.5 −4.302 6.732 3.320 0.573 4.340 3.266
QAM 33.7606 51.43970 1864 2000/01 2006/12 −0.9 0.606 1.779 2.191 0.087 1.642 1.495
SHGR 32.1083 48.80130 150 2011/01 2011/12 — −13.25 27.67 9.648 0.530 2.007 1.890
THKV 35.9157 50.87881 1795 2000/01 2003/12 2.8 −0.602 4.013 3.128 0.613 4.232 3.140
TUTA 39.4019 42.81370 2154 2010/03 2012/04 3.6 −3.196 3.749 1.664 −0.172 1.670 1.638
Corrections, mean residuals, and root mean square (rms) residuals are given in seconds. Station elevations are given in meters
above sea level. Subscript “p” indicates values prior to correction; “f” indicates final values after correction; “t” indicates values
just for the time period of interest; and “a” indicates values for all times.

this period. The calculated correction for this time period
is 2.0 s.
BNDS
Station BNDS is located near Bandar Abbas, Hormozgan
Province, Iran, and data have been reported to the ISC since
2004, with a six-month gap from late 2012 through early 2013
(Ⓔ Fig. S3). The period of interest spans April 2012 through
June 2014, and it contains average residuals of 2.1 s in the un-
corrected data. After applying the timing correction of 2.9 s,
the average residual during the time period of interest is
brought down to 0.1 s.
HAKT
Station HAKT is located near Hakkari, Hakkari Province,
Turkey, and data have been reported to the ISC since 2005
(Ⓔ Fig. S4). This station has two short periods of interest last-
ing five months (November 2007–March 2008) and two
months (January–February 2011), both of which contain pre-
dominantly positive P-wave residuals. Although a very short
deviation in residual distribution is often due to an aftershock
series or a swarm, the large residuals occur for earthquakes at a
range of azimuths and distances for both of these periods. In
both periods, residuals tend to increase over time and more
rapidly return to background values, suggesting that these
may both be cases of clock drift. Given the relatively short du-
ration of these periods, this is difficult to confirm with cer-
tainty; they are treated as periods of constant timing offset
for correction calculation. The timing corrections for the
two periods are among the largest of any station discussed here:
−5:2 and −6:6 s.
HKZM
Station HKZM is located west of Razan, Hamadan Province,
Iran, and data have been reported to the ISC between 2011
and 2013 (Ⓔ Fig. S5). During the period of interest from
January through February 2012, all P-wave residuals are pos-
itive and greater than 1 s, with an average P-wave residual of
2.9 s. Although many of the residuals during this period are for
earthquakes in a cluster to the southeast of the station, P-wave
residuals are also positive and large for earthquakes to the north
and west of the station.
IGAR, IKLH, IPIR, and IZEF
Stations IGAR, IKLH, IPIR, and IZEF are located near Ghar-
neh, Kalahroud, Kuh-e Pir Pir, and Zefreh, Isfahan Province,

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 Iran, respectively. Data have been reported to the ISC since (a) 40°
2005 (Ⓔ Figs. S6, S7, S8, and S10). With the exception of
IGAR, these stations are part of the Esfahan (Isfahan) subnet-
work of the University of Tehran network. In uncorrected
data, the three stations have average residuals of −1:3 to −1:6 s
35°
for earthquakes in 2005. The corrections calculated for these
stations are also similar to each other, 2.0–2.1 s. The consis- 15
tency between the corrections and affected time periods, com- 10

Residual (s)
bined with their being part of the same subnetwork, suggests a 5
common cause to their errors, perhaps a telemetry delay that 30° 0
–5
was improperly accounted for. Station IZEF also displays a sec-
–10
ond deviation in residuals in November and December 2011, –15
but this is not investigated further because it is caused by a IHSH
typical distribution of residuals that is contaminated by several 25°
large residuals. (b) 40°
IRAZ
Station IRAZ is located near Razequan, Markazi Province,
Iran, and data have been reported to the ISC since 2004
(Ⓔ Fig. S9). The period of interest spans from June 2005 35°
through September 2006, and it contains generally positive 15
P-wave residuals, averaging 4.8 s, with more scatter than the 10

background. After applying the timing correction of 1.5 s, the
residuals during the period of interest continue to have more
scatter than the background, and P-wave residuals for shorter
windows within the period of interest have averages of up to
2 s, suggesting a secondary source of shorter-term timing errors.
QAM
Station QAM is located in Ghamsar, Isfahan Province, Iran,
and data have been reported to the ISC from 2005 through
2006 and 2010 through 2015 (with two arrivals reported be-
tween 2006 and 2010), an ∼14-month gap from mid-2012
through mid-2013 and a 4-month gap in 2014 (Ⓔ Fig. S12).
Prior to 2007, residuals have an average value of 0.6 s. Follow-
ing a timing correction of −0:9 s for this earlier period, resid-
uals are consistently distributed for all time periods.
TUTA
Station TUTA is located south of Tutak, Ağrı Province, Tur-
key, and data have been reported to the ISC between 2007 and
2014 (Ⓔ Fig. S15). During March–April 2010, all but one
residual for this station are negative, with an average value
of −3:2 s. Although the most negative residuals are for a cluster
of earthquakes to the southwest of the station, residuals are
negative for earthquakes at all azimuths to the station during
this period. After the application of the 3.6 s timing correction,
the residuals are brought in line with those of the background
periods, with similar scatter throughout.
Station Location Corrections
IHSH
Station IHSH is located near Hashtrood, East Azerbaijan
Province, Iran, and data have been reported to the ISC by
the University of Tehran since 2005, with no data reported
between 2007 and mid-2013 or since 2015. Although there
Residual (s)
5
30° 0
–5
–10
–15
IKRD
25°
40° 45° 50° 55° 60°
▴ Figure 4. Plots of ray paths shaded by residual for stations
(a) IHSH and (b) IKRD, which indicate that the reported locations
for these stations are incorrect. The correct locations should
be in the direction of the most negative residuals (south for IHSH
and east for IKRD). Outliers from this pattern (particularly large
positive residuals for some earthquakes south of the reported
location for IKRD) indicate earthquakes that are significantly
mislocated using the reported station location or individual bad
picks. Refer to the Station Location Corrections section and
Table 1 for correct coordinates of these stations. The color
version of this figure is available only in the electronic edition.
is no identifiable period of larger-than-average residuals, the
root mean square (rms) residual for this station is 2.5 times
that of all stations in this dataset. Residuals for earthquakes
surrounding the station are clearly azimuthally dependent
(Fig. 4a and Ⓔ Fig. S15), suggesting that the reported station
location is likely incorrect, and the station may actually be lo-
cated south of the reported location. Google Earth imagery also
shows no evidence of a seismic station at the coordinates given
by the ISC (38.30670° N, 47.26300° E), whereas seismometer
housings are evident at many other stations in the region (see
Data and Resources). Approximately 1° south of the reported
location, at 37.3050° N, 47.2636° E, what appears to be a seis-
mometer housing is visible in Google Earth imagery.
Using this new location with an elevation of 2147 m
(based on the elevation for these coordinates in Google Earth)

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 reduces the rms residuals from 8.493 to 2.280 s, supporting this
correction to the reported location for station IHSH. A 1° er-
ror in station location, such as that seen here, corresponds to an
approximately
15 s error in predicted P-wave travel time for
earthquakes along the axis of the mislocation direction, which
corresponds to the residual distribution observed when using
the registered ISC location. The error in reported station co-
ordinates appears to have been introduced during the registra-
tion of the station location with the ISC, likely as a simple
mistyping of coordinates. Spot checking of the pick files sent
to the ISC (see Data and Resources) indicate that the Univer-
sity of Tehran uses a location similar to the one determined
here in their routine locations, not the location registered with
the ISC, based on the reported event-station distances and
azimuths.
IKRD
Station IKRD is located near Kardeh, Razavi Korasan Prov-
ince, Iran, and data have been reported to the ISC since
2005. Similar to IHSH, there is no clear change in the tem-
poral pattern of residuals over time, but the rms residual is 2.5
times that of all stations in the dataset, and there is a clear
azimuthal dependence of residuals (Fig. 4b and Ⓔ Fig. S16).
Google Earth imagery shows no evidence of a seismic station at
the coordinates given by the ISC (36.7759° N, 58.5146° E).
Additionally, the elevation of these coordinates as reported
in Google Earth is 668 m lower than the elevation given
for the station by the ISC. The pattern of residuals suggests
that the actual station location is east of the reported location.
As for IHSH, the ∼30 s difference between the most positive
and the most negative P-wave residual calculated for this
station indicates that the correct location should be ∼1° from
the reported location. Indeed, exactly 1° further east, at
36.7759° N, 59.5146° E, Google Earth shows similar infrastruc-
ture to what is observed at other stations in the region, and the
elevation differs by only 40 m from that reported by the ISC.
Using this location reduces the rms residuals from 8.355 to
3.214 s for Station IKRD. As with IHSH, the event-station
distances and azimuths for IKRD given in the original Uni-
versity of Tehran pick files submitted to the ISC agree better
with our corrected location than with the registered ISC loca-
tion, indicating that the source of the incorrect location is
likely a mistyping of the correct station coordinates upon regis-
try at the ISC.
Other Station Issues
AKDM, GURO, and MLAZ
These three stations are in southeastern Turkey and have re-
ported data from late 2012 through 2016, with the exception
of GURO, which also has a small amount of data for 2011.
The P-wave residuals for these stations suggest that they expe-
rienced the same clock drift over the duration, with a roughly
sinusoidal pattern (Fig. 2b). On average, residuals are most neg-
ative in early 2013 and early mid-2016, and they are most pos-
itive in late 2014/early 2015, with an ∼0:7 s difference
between the lowest and highest monthly median values for
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by Indonesian Agency for Meterology, Climatology and Geophysics user
each station. Although sinusoidal (or similar) curves could
be fit to the residuals for each station and used as station cor-
rections, one could not determine the correct absolute times of
the arrivals. Therefore, no correction is solved for here.
SHGR
Station SHGR has data reported to the ISC from mid-2004
through mid-2015. In general, residuals at SHGR are small
(< 10 s) and tightly centered on 0 s. In 2011, most residuals
continue to be small and tightly centered on 0 s, but 30% of the
P-wave residuals have a magnitude greater than 10 s (Fig. 2c
and Ⓔ Fig. S17). Upon further investigation, it appears that
almost all of these large-magnitude residuals are associated with
an arrival time that is the same as that reported for the same
earthquakes, but from either Station ISHM (584 km away),
ISHV (1011 km away), SHRO (792 km away), or SHRT
(1086 km away). Because these affected earthquakes are not
equidistant to SHGR and any of these stations, it is clear that
somehow their times were being erroneously reported for
SHGR. Upon spot checking data files from the Iranian Seis-
mological Center at the University of Tehran, which reports
many arrival times for Iranian stations to the ISC (see Data and
Resources), including the five stations discussed here, there are
no such erroneous arrivals in the original data files. Data for
many Iranian stations are also reported by the University of
Tehran to the Centre Sismologique Euro-Méditerranéen
(CSEM) and then on to the ISC (see Data and Resources).
It appears that the erroneous attribution of arrivals to SHGR
occurred in the incorporation of the University of Tehran
arrivals into the CSEM catalog, and these arrivals are then in-
corporated into the ISC catalog. To address this problem, any
arrival for SHGR during 2011 that matched the time of any of
these four stations was removed from the dataset (90 P and S
arrivals in total) before the final relocation inversion was per-
formed.
Effect on Earthquake Locations
Accurate earthquake locations rely on the accurate timing of
data from stations. For the dataset presented here, applying
the station timing corrections and corrected station locations
has a relatively small effect on earthquake locations and seis-
micity patterns overall. However, only a small proportion of
arrival times is affected by these corrections. Although 17
out of 299 stations have corrections applied (5.4%), this
amounts to 0.48% of the arrival times being affected by a tim-
ing correction, 0.29% of them being affected by a station lo-
cation correction, and 0.02% removed as erroneous picks. Out
of the 16,500 earthquakes analyzed as part of this study, only
2183 are associated with arrivals that have had corrections ap-
plied. Of these 2183 earthquakes affected by the corrections,
the average earthquake shift is 7 km, with a maximum horizon-
tal shift of 48 km and a maximum depth shift of 59 km. 39% of
these earthquakes move 5 km or more from their locations
using uncorrected data.
 CONCLUSIONS
We identified 14 stations in Iran and Turkey with likely clock
errors between 2000 and 2016. Using the methods described
here, timing errors can be similarly identified in other arrival-
time datasets and corrections to address these errors can be
solved for. We have also identified two stations with locations
that are almost certainly incorrect in the International Registry
of Seismograph Stations.
Although these corrections have a relatively small effect on
earthquake locations, one can easily image scenarios where sim-
ilar corrections for other datasets would have a more important
effect. For example, at a volcano monitored by fewer stations,
the onset of a timing error at a single station could result in an
apparent shift in earthquake locations over time and be erro-
neously interpreted as indicating a change in magma storage.
DATA AND RESOURCES
The data used in this research were downloaded from the
International Seismic Centre (http://www.isc.ac.uk/iscbulletin/
search/arrivals/interactive/, last accessed January 2017). All fig-
ures were made using the Generic Mapping Tools software
package v.4.5.9 (www.soest.hawaii.edu/gmt; Wessel and Smith,
1998). The other data are from the following websites: http://
www.gps.gov/applications/timing/ (last accessed April 2017),
http://www.isc.ac.uk/registries/search/ (last accessed April 2017),
http://www.isc.ac.uk/cgi-bin/agency-get?agency=THE (last accessed
January 2017), and http://www.isc.ac.uk/cgi-bin/agency-get?
agency=CSEM (last accessed May 2017). For Google Earth imagery,
see www.google.com/earth/desktop/ (last accessed April 2017).
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors thank Eric Bergman and two anonymous re-
viewers for their helpful comments and input. This work
was conducted under the auspices of the U.S. Department
of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration by Los
Alamos National Laboratory under Contracts LA17-Signal-
Propagation-NDD2Ab and DE-AC52-06NA25396. The
views and conclusions contained in this article are those of
the authors and should not be interpreted as necessarily rep-
resenting the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the
U.S. Government.
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Ellen M. Syracuse
W. Scott Phillips
Michael L. Begnaud
Los Alamos National Laboratory
MS F665, P.O. Box 1663
Los Alamos, New Mexico 87544 U.S.A.
syracuse@lanl.gov
Monica Maceira
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
MS-6050, P.O. Box 2008
Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831 U.S.A.
Published Online 6 September 2017
Volume 88, Number 6 November/December 2017 1479