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Update 20 July 2026: See our addendum below regarding Data Submission

Our PH5 web services located at service.iris.edu/ph5ws/ will be migrating and retiring. The data and metadata previously served by these web services will be migrated to our FDSN web services located at service.earthscope.org/fdsnws/. The active source shot information, available via the event interface, will be served from the the data.earthscope.org site.

What: 

• Retirement of service.iris.edu/ph5ws services and temporary gap in access to the data sets available from them. The data sets will be available via other access mechanisms in the future.
• The PH5-specific options for selection by shot and delivery of SEGY converted data. These features will be replaced in the future depending on demand.

When: As early as August 2026

This retirement and migration will be happening over the coming months. During this migration datasets may temporarily be unavailable as the migration progresses. If you are interested in a particular dataset please contact help@earthscope.org so we better prioritize the order of migration.

Also, some of the unique (non-FDSN web service) query patterns available exclusively through PH5 web services will no longer be available. Please let us know through help@earthscope.org how this affects your workflow so we can explore future expansion of web services or support packages to best serve our community.

Data submission

The retirements described above do not currently affect the submission and archival workflow for raw Fairfield/SmartSolo node data in PH5, whether currently in the field, awaiting processing, or pending archival. During the transition period, EarthScope will continue to support the existing submission workflow while replacement tools and workflows are developed. Future changes to PH5 data submission and archival procedures will be communicated separately with sufficient advance notice.

Recent improvements supporting the transition

To support this transition, recent updates have been made to the ph5tostationxml and ph5toeventxml (QuakeML) translation tools. These enhancements improve the translation of PH5 metadata into StationXML and QuakeML formats, helping preserve metadata fidelity as datasets transition to standards-based services. Although these were targeted improvements, they underwent the standard review, testing, and validation process before release.

Looking ahead

Over the longer term, EarthScope plans to transition away from PH5 as the archival format for new nodal data submissions. This transition will occur in conjunction with the development and validation of replacement tools and workflows. Our goal is to provide a clear migration path while minimizing disruption to Portable Program investigators and maintaining an efficient data archival pipeline.