Extremely low frequency band station for natural electromagnetic noise measurement

A new permanent ELF measurement station has been deployed in Sierra Nevada, Spain. It is composed of two magnetometers, oriented NS and EW, respectively. At 10 Hz, their sensitivity is 19 μV/pT and the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is 28 dB for a time-varying signal of 1 pT, the expected field amplitude in Sierra Nevada. The station operates for frequencies below 24 Hz. The magnetometers, together with their corresponding electronics, have been specifically designed to achieve such an SNR for small signals. They are based on high-resolution search coils with ferromagnetic core and 106 turns, operating in limited geometry configuration. Different system noise sources are considered, and a stud…

Solar storm effects during Saint Patrick's Days in 2013 and 2015 on the Schumann resonances measured by the ELF station at Sierra Nevada (Spain)

Graphical Schemes Designed to Display and Study the Long-term Variations of Schumann Resonance

This work proposes and illustrates a graphical approach aimed at studying a wide range of features of the ELF horizontal magnetic field signal recorded at the Sierra Nevada station (Spain). In addition to the traditional long-term variations in the parameters of the first three Schumann resonances (their amplitudes, central frequencies and widths), many other properties such as the saturations of the magnetometers, anomalous values for the parameters or spectra with any kind of particularities are taken into consideration in this work. These features can provide us with complementary information about the long-term variation of Schumann resonances, give an estimation of the extent up to whi…