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New Community Resource for Rapidly Responding to Geohazards

Session: Recent Development in Ultra-Dense Seismic Arrays with Nodes and Distributed Acoustic Sensing [Poster]

Type: Poster

Date: 4/20/2021

Presentation Time: 04:15 PM Pacific

Description: 

Geohazards, including earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, floods, and landslides, cause billions of dollars in U.S. economic losses, loss of life, injuries, and significant disruption to lives and livelihoods on an annual basis. The ability of the geoscience community to respond rapidly after a hazardous event or at the signs of precursors to these events, provides critical data to understand the physical processes responsible for these destructive events. These data are only available while these events are happening or in their immediate aftermath and have the potential to significantly improve hazard assessment and mitigation strategies. The current instrumentation and infrastructure for rapid response efforts available from the SAGE Portable Instrumentation Pool (IRIS/PASSCAL) is being upgraded to take advantage of newer technologies and updated installation techniques - enhancing the geoscience community’s capability to effectively respond rapidly to geohazards.

As part of the current SAGE award from NSF, IRIS has funding to procure and operate a new pool of instrumentation for rapidly responding to geohazards. Beginning in 2019, IRIS convened a number of in-person and virtual gatherings to solicit community input on science objectives and observational requirements for conducting and advancing research related to geohazards. We have compiled this input into a recently-released community white paper (see www.iris.edu/rapid) that summarizes rapid response science drivers, defines needed instrument capabilities, and makes short and long-term recommendations for facility capabilities. With this community guidance, over the next two years IRIS, working with the PASSCAL community governance, will define technical specifications, evaluate and purchase a new set of instrumentation, and define policies and procedures to use this new capability – enhancing the ability of PIs to rapidly respond to geohazard events. We anticipate that the new rapid response instrument pool will be fully operational and ready for community use no later than September 2023.

Presenting Author: Justin Sweet

Student Presenter: No

Authors