Sismalp: the Alpine Monitoring Service

Located in the heart of the French Alps, the Institute of Earth Sciences (ISTerre) naturally draws on this exceptional geological environment to guide a significant part of its research. In this context, researchers at the Institute have progressively developed a long-standing tradition of instrumental observation of seismicity and deformation in the Alpine chain. This approach aims to enhance the quality, precision, and robustness of measurements, ensure their long-term continuity, and promote the sharing of data and derived products with both the scientific community and the wider public.


Supported by the Observatoire des Sciences de l’Univers de Grenoble (OSUG), these observations are integrated into national initiatives coordinated by Research Infrastructures. They are carried out in close collaboration with our international partners, in particular the Swiss Seismological Service (SED/ETH Zurich) and the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) in Italy, with whom we share data, projects, and scientific results.


These observational activities form a fundamental basis for our research. They fall within the cross-cutting theme "The Alps and the Quantitative Assessment of Relief and Its Evolution", which aims to improve our understanding of the geodynamic processes shaping this mountain range.