Purpose
COSMOS exists to bring together programs, agencies, and institutions working on strong-motion earthquake measurement, and to help them solve shared problems around instrumentation, data quality, and data access. Rather than each organization tackling these challenges alone, COSMOS provides a forum where practical experience and technical expertise can be pooled for the benefit of the broader earthquake engineering and seismology community.
Objectives
Broadly, COSMOS works to encourage the adoption of better, more consistent methods for recording and measuring strong ground motion, particularly in urban areas and other locations where a future earthquake could have significant consequences; support the timely, convenient, and reliable distribution of strong-motion data according to shared community standards; strengthen and expand strong-motion monitoring programs across different regions and agencies; provide a venue for resolving common technical challenges around instrumentation, data quality, and data dissemination; and advance the use of strong-motion data by researchers and practitioners so that the built environment becomes more resilient to earthquakes.