Overview
The International Federation of Digital Seismograph Networks (FDSN) defines miniSEED as a format for digital data and related information. The primary intended uses are data collection, archiving and exchange of seismological data. The format is also appropriate for time series data from other geophysical measurements such as pressure, temperature, tilt, etc. In addition to the time series, storage of related state-of-health and parameters documenting the state of the recording system are supported. The FDSN metadata counterpart of miniSEED is StationXML which is used to describe characteristics needed to interpret the data such as location, instrument response, etc.
Versioning
Starting with version 3 of miniSEED, the specification version is a single integer. Any non-backward compatible change to the structure of the header or record results in an increment to this number. The specification version corresponds to field 2, Format version, in the header of records written to conform with this version of the specification. There are no minor revisions. However, the addition of new data encodings or new reserved headers is considered backwards compatible. The FDSN may add encodings and extra headers within the FDSN key or make editorial changes to the specification without change to the major version, resulting only in a new revision of the specification document. Note that all parsing software MUST allow for the potential of unknown, new data encodings and new extra headers as these are subject to extension. This requirement allows older software to parse future records successfully within the same specification major version, even though they may be unable to decompress the data payload for new encodings.
This document is miniSEED v3 rev. 2023-01-18.
Note
This specification defines miniSEED 3. See Background for information on earlier versions.