Optimal seismic networks in Israel in the context of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty

The International Monitoring System (IMS) location capability in the Eastern Mediterranean region is limited by the network sparseness. The addition of Cooperating National Facility (CNF) stations is one way to enhance location capability. The sites for such stations should be located so as to minimize the area of the 90% confidence-error ellipse. In this study, configurations of potential CNF stations in Israel are optimized, based on a representative set of seismic events. Appropriate total error variance comprised of model and measurement errors is estimated based on 1997 regional events. A genetic algorithm (GA) technique is used for the optimization. It is compared to the differential evolution (DE) technique and to random search (RS) and found superior but not by a great margin, which indicates that the optimization problem is not hard to solve. Configurations proposed by expert seismologists are compared to the computerized solution and are found inferior. Adding a few potential CNF stations in Jordan improves the location capability significantly.