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Rutgers and Yale Rapid Seismic Array Deployment and Contribution to the 2024 Whitehouse Station, NJ, Earthquake Response: Collaborations, Reactions, and Education and Public Outreach

Description: 

The 5 April 2024, Mw 4.8 earthquake at Whitehouse Station, NJ, reminded the densely populated Tri-State population that the earth can quake beneath their feet. Teams of seismologists including personnel from the USGS, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, and the University of Texas at Austin deployed rapid response equipment. These stations will provide recordings of the ephemeral near‐field aftershocks and ambient noise that provide valuable insight into fault and miscroseismic structure around the epicenter. As part of this cooperative deployment, Rutgers and Yale installed 10 (of the total of ~30) temporary broadband instruments from the EarthScope Consortium’s NSF-Funded RAPID instrumentation pool. The stations continue to record the aftershock sequence and are expected to remain in the field for ~2 months, with some planned for ~1 year. The deployment augments the permanent seismic network in the area to improve azimuthal coverage and provide additional near‐field observations. In addition, a nodal deployment of 100 instruments is in preparation to further densify the coverage of the area in the close vicinity to the epicenter, with the aim to improve the sensitivity for smaller aftershocks.

Following the earthquake, community outreach has been established with local schools to educate students on the event and the field of Earth Science in general. We plan to work with local school leaders to install affordable seismic equipment (Raspberry Shakes) as teaching aids for students who have now felt an earthquake. Additionally, fast response public outreach by both Rutgers and Yale Universities aided the public by providing critical geologic information to an unsettled public. This contribution summarizes the motivation and goals of the deployment, details of the configurations of the network. We expect the resulting data to be useful for a range of studies including detailing variability in ground motions, determining stress drops and rupture directivity of small events, imaging the fault zone, documenting the evolution of crustal properties within and outside of the fault zone, and others.

Session: The 5 April 2024 Magnitude 4.8 Whitehouse Station, New Jersey Earthquake - I

Type: Oral

Date: 5/3/2024

Presentation Time: 02:45 PM (local time)

Presenting Author: Frederik

Student Presenter: No

Invited Presentation: 

Authors