After the talks in Beijing in December 2018, seismologists of the Institute of Geophysics of the China Earthquake Administration came to Armenia. Together with the institute’s staff they carried out large-scale field work in northern Armenia to choose the best sites for the future stations of the joint network.
A good station site must be quiet: far from roads and machinery, on solid ground, and safe to reach in any season. At each candidate site the team dug a pit, set a seismometer on a levelled base, connected it to a recorder and checked how the ground behaves. Snow, fog and cold did not stop the work. Site surveys for eight stations were completed in 2019.
From test pits to CHARNET
The chosen sites became the basis of the network. In 2021 an Armenian–Chinese seminar in Gyumri prepared the stations, and in 2025 the CHARNET seismic and GNSS centre opened in Gyumri. Today these stations record earthquakes in Armenia and around the world.