The National Earthquake Information Center (NEIC), a division of the U.S. Geological Survey in Golden, Colorado, collects, analyzes, and processes seismic data for scientific analysis and research.
The NEIC receives several hundred incident reports a day. These provide data on seismic activity from around the world. Data arrives by e-mail, airmail, fax, and airborne carrier package. Data can be in one of three languages: English, Spanish, and Russian. Considerable quality control is required on the source documents before they are entered into the computer.
All data from the incoming messages is fed into a USGS owned database; the results are then subjected to another rigorous quality control review.
SRG personnel translate macro seismic (felt and damage) information, seismograms and other informational materials arriving from over 3000 stations around the world. The contract requires a 99% accuracy level with typing skills at 70 wpm.
Non-English documents are translated by SRG personnel prior to data entry.
A scanning process captures all documents and the results of this are interpreted via OCR. The resultant data is then subject to a rigorous quality control inspection.
SRG assumed this contract as the prime contractor on December 1, 1997 upon the bankruptcy of the original contractor. Assumption occurred very quickly, over a 3 day period. We assigned a Project Director full time at the site on a temporary basis to get the project running smoothly. SRG was able to assume a vital, ongoing project and rapidly assimilate new employees, their tasks, and their responsibilities. These employees are the only individuals in the United States performing these functions, and the only group in the world processing this volume and variety of data.
When SRG assumed this project, a backlog of printed materials dated back almost five years, because the previous contractors were entering the material manually. SRG installed a scanner and the backlog was eliminated. Today, incoming data is immediately scanned, OCR'd, proofed, processed and electronically forwarded to NEIC analysts who provide the data as current information to research geophysicists.