Evolution of the IRIS Portable Facility: New Tools for Wavefield Imaging, Rapid Response and Magnetotellurics

Date: 4/24/2019

Time: 06:00 PM

Room: Fifth Avenue

As IRIS embarks upon a new 5-year cooperative agreement with NSF titled the Seismological Facilities for the Advancement of Geosciences (SAGE), the PASSCAL portable facility will undergo several important changes to enhance the capabilities it provides to Principal Investigators (PIs) conducting portable deployments.

The most immediate change to the portable instrumentation pool will be the addition of hundreds of nodal-style sensors. These all-in-one systems combine the sensor, datalogger, GPS timing, and power in a small self-contained unit with the ability to record continuously for up to a month without battery replacement or recharge. In comparison to the aging Texan pool, these nodes represent a technological leap that will enable new kinds of portable deployments (e.g. rapid response, Large N, full-wavefield characterization) with significantly less logistical effort. IRIS/PASSCAL now has approximately 500 of these nodes available for community use, with plans to exceed 1,000 nodes within the next few years.

IRIS also plans to build a new pool of intermediate-period sensors that can record data with low noise and high fidelity from 10s of Hz to 10s of seconds. These intermediate-period sensors are smaller, cheaper, and easier to deploy than traditional broadband sensors in use today, making them ideal for source studies in remote or challenging areas. IRIS/PASSCAL is planning for this pool to grow over the next five to ten years to as many as 400 systems.

IRIS will enhance capabilities for investigators to respond to geo-hazards with a pool of nodal and intermediate period instruments that will be set aside for fast response work and may incorporate telemetry systems for monitoring.

Lastly, IRIS is planning to establish a new pool of magnetotelluric (MT) systems at the PASSCAL Instrument Center, leveraging PASSCAL expertise to facilitate new multidisciplinary geophysical investigations. This effort will provide centralized and maintained access to several dozen long period and, eventually, wideband MT systems to support PI-led campaigns.

Presenting Author: Justin R. Sweet

Authors