SeisCat

Keep a local seismic catalog.

Copyright (c) 2022-2026 Claudio Satriano satriano@ipgp.fr

Overview

SeisCat is a command-line tool to build, maintain, and query a local seismic catalog.

It builds and updates the catalog from FDSNWS event web services or local event files. Input formats include CSV and any format handled by ObsPy (QuakeML, SC3ML, NLLOC, etc.). The catalog is stored in a SQLite single-file database and can be used as a basis for further analysis.

SeisCat also provides tools to plot and export the catalog, fetch waveforms and station metadata for catalog events, and run user-defined scripts on those events.

👇 See below on how to install and get started.

📖 Check out the official documentation.

Getting Started

To get help:

seiscat -h

First thing to do is to generate a sample configuration file:

seiscat sampleconfig

Then, edit the configuration file and init the database:

seiscat initdb

Alternatively, you can init the database from an event file (CSV, QuakeML, SC3ML, NLLOC, etc.):

seiscat initdb -f /path/to/your/catalog.csv
seiscat initdb -f /path/to/your/events.xml

To update an existing database from an FDSN webservice, run:

seiscat updatedb

(This will use the configuration parameter recheck_period to recheck the last n days or hours).

Alternatively, you can update the database from an event file:

seiscat updatedb -f /path/to/your/catalog.csv
seiscat updatedb -f /path/to/your/events.xml

You can edit the attributes of specific events in the database using:

seiscat editdb

You can print the catalog to screen:

seiscat print

Or plot it:

seiscat plot

Each of the above commands can have its own options. As an example, to discover the options for the plot command, try:

seiscat plot -h

To enable command line tab completion run:

seiscat self completion install

Installation

Recommended installation (system tool)

The easiest and recommended way to install SeisCat is as a system tool using the official installation script. This installs SeisCat independently of your system Python (if any) and manages it via uv.

Linux & macOS

Run one of the following commands:

bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/SeismicSource/seiscat/refs/heads/main/scripts/install_seiscat_uv.sh)"

or:

bash -c "$(wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/SeismicSource/seiscat/refs/heads/main/scripts/install_seiscat_uv.sh -O -)"

Windows (PowerShell)

Run the following command in PowerShell:

powershell -ExecutionPolicy ByPass -c "irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/SeismicSource/seiscat/refs/heads/main/scripts/install_seiscat_uv.ps1 | iex"

Updating SeisCat

Once installed as a system tool, SeisCat can be updated directly:

seiscat self update

To switch to the development version:

seiscat self update --git

For alternative installation methods (pip, development snapshots, releases, and editable source installs), see the full installation documentation.

Getting Help / Reporting Bugs

🙏 I need help

Please open an Issue.

🐞 I found a bug

Please open an Issue.

Contributing

I'm very open to contributions: if you have new ideas, please open an Issue. Don't hesitate sending me pull requests with new features and/or bugfixes!

   /\_/\
~~( ⊙.⊙ )~~ SeisCat