Big PictureΒΆ

ASDF stores everything in an HDF5 file with a layout that is illustrated by the following picture. It contains four parts, all of which are elaborated upon in another section:

  1. Earthquake information (yellow) is stored in the form of a single QuakeML file. It can store an arbitrary number of seismic events of various types.
  2. Waveform information is stored in the green part at a per station granularity. This section also contains the station meta information in form of StationXML files. Please also note the possible associations of waveforms with parts of a seismic event and the possible provenance links.
  3. Anything not a waveform is stored in the red section. Arbitrary nesting is possible alongside the capability to store provenance information.
  4. The blue section finally contains a collection of provenance documents that can be referred to from other parts of the ASDF file.
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