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UNAVCO Highlights
Title Date
COCONet station installed in Anguilla With assistance from the Anguillan government, UNAVCO installed a continuous GPS/MET site in Anguilla, one of the most northerly of the Leeward Islands in the Lesser Antilles, lying east of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, and directly north of Saint Martin.
Read more		 2013-05
COCONet station installed near Anegada Passage Puerto Rico and the northern Virgin Islands define the eastern terminus of the Greater Antilles, which extend eastward from offshore eastern Central America to the Lesser Antilles volcanic arc and mark the boundary between the Caribbean and North America plates.
Read more		 2013-05
Three continuous GPS sites constructed in Panama for COCONet UNAVCO staff installed 3 new COCONet continuous GPS/MET sites in Panama, which complement the previously installed CN33 (ca. November 2011) continuous GPS/MET site. A total of 4 new COCONet cGPS and meteorological sites (CN20, CN28, CN33, and CN34) are now operational in Panama.
Read more		 2013-04
Characterizing Forest Structure for Snow Prediction using Terrestrial Laser Scanning Seasonal snowpacks are difficult to measure and model in complex forested terrain. These measurements are necessary in order to reliably predict weather, climate, and water resources in much of the western U.S. The interactions between local vegetation structure and climate play a central role in the accumulation and ablation of snow, but it remains challenging to represent snowpack processes and distributions at the scales that land surface models are typically applied.
Read more		 2013-04
Strainmeters capture strain transients following the M4.7 March 2013 Anza Earthquake On March 11 2013 a M4.7 earthquake occurred in the Anza section of the San Jacinto fault (SJF) zone. The event was typical for the region, it occurred at a depth of 13.1±0.5 km and the focal mechanism indicated strike-slip motion on an 82° dipping fault.
Read more		 2013-04
GNSS station installed on Brown Mountain, South Georgia Island The first continuous GNSS station on South Georgia Island was installed in February 2013 as a collaboration between the University of Luxembourg, the British National Oceanographic Centre, the British Antarctic Survey, and UNAVCO.
Read more		 2013-04
COCONet stations in Mexico provide links between North American and Caribbean plates Two sites at the most southern part of the North American continental plate were installed in Mexico as part of the ongoing Continuously Operating Caribbean GPS Observational Network (COCONet).
Read more		 2013-03
Further Terrestrial Laser Scan (TLS) Measurements on Toutle River The Toutle River is a 17.2-mile (27.7 km) tributary of the Cowlitz River in the U.S. state of Washington. It rises in two forks merging near Toutle below Mount St. Helens and joins the Cowlitz near Castle Rock, 20 miles (32 km) upstream of the larger river's confluence with the Columbia River. The river was altered by the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens and subsequent flows of ash and other debris.
Read more		 2013-02
Terrestrial Laser Scan (TLS) of Handcart Gulch explores rock glaciers Handcart Gulch, named for the handcarts that Colorado miners used to pull outfits up the steep valley walls, was a rowdy area that reached its peak in 1876-77 with several hundred miners in the area. Today, a cabin and some ruins mark the site. It is also the site of a terrestrial laser scanning project that hopes to shed light on the geological faulting of the region.
Read more		 2013-02
UNAVCO uses Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) to examine bluff beneath 12th century castle In the Burggrafenamt district of South Tirol, Italy, a castle sits on a hill, named by the ancestral seat of the Counts of Tirol during the 12th century. The castle has witnessed a range of historical events, through the Habsburg dynasty, the Napoleonic Wars, two world wars, and now embodies its modern role as the South Tirolean Museum of History.
Read more		 2013-02
RAPID: Nicoya Earthquake After-event Response (NEAR) 2012 Megathrust earthquakes occur at subduction zones at convergent boundaries, where one tectonic plate is subducted by another. These earthquakes are among the most powerful and destructive natural hazards on the planet.
Read more		 2013-02
UNAVCO connects communications with two AfricaArray GPS sites In July of 2012, UNAVCO engineers traveled to both Mongu and Itezhi-tezi, Zambia to upgrade continuous GPS sites by affixing data communication systems. The Itezhi-tezhi GPS site received a BGAN satellite communication system and the Mongu site received a cellular modem. This allows both sites to transmit data on a regular basis to the UNAVCO facility in Boulder, CO.
Read more		 2013-01
M7.5 Earthquake 94 km W of Craig, Alaska On January 5th, 2013, at 08:58 UTC, a magnitude 7.5 earthquake shook the ocean floor off the west coast of southeastern Alaska. A tsunami was generated, but the waves were only about six inches above normal and the tsunami warning was canceled. The earthquake was followed by six aftershocks as large as M5.1, and came nearly four hours after the initial quake. Houses shook and items were moved around, but there were no injuries reported.
Read more		 2013-01
Delving into the East African Rift System in Three Dimensions During July of 2012, 10 new continuous GPS stations were installed around the Lake Malawi region. Lake Malawi is the southernmost lake in the East African Rift system, located between Malawi, Mozambique, and Tanzania. The third largest and second deepest lake in Africa, it is also the ninth largest in the world. Working in Africa always presents many challenging logistics for large-scale projects and this was no exception.
Read more		 2013-01
Exploring arc volcano processes with the Soufriere Hills Volcano, Montserrat In April of 2012, two engineers from UNAVCO conducted a maintenance trip to the Island of Montserrat to service four stations that house continuous GPS systems and borehole strain meters.
Read more		 2013-01
Improving Our Understanding of Carbon Sequestration Monitoring with GPS Tim Dixon of the University of South Florida is working to develop a new, integrated approach for monitoring, verification, and accounting of carbon dioxide (CO2) sequestered in deep geologic repositories. Interest in terrestrial carbon sequestration has increased in an effort to explore opportunities for climate change mitigation.
Read more		 2012-12
Join us at AGU! (2012) Come find us at Booth #118 in San Fransisco at the annual AGU meeting.
Read more		 2012-11
COCONet GPS Network Expansion: Redonda Island Blurb: As part of the ongoing COCONet installation phase, one continuously operating GPS site was installed on Redonda Island in the West Indies of the Caribbean ocean. The island belongs to the nation of Antigua but its nearest neighbor is Montserrat, located 12 miles due southeast.
Read more		 2012-11
COCONet GPS Network Expansion: Colombia In August and September of 2012, UNAVCO supported the installation of four new cGPS stations in Colombia as part of the ongoing COCONet installation phase. Three of the new sites are located along the northern coast of the country and one site is on the island of Providencia (belonging to Colombia), situated 140 miles off of the eastern coast of Nicaragua.
Read more		 2012-11
The BanglaPIRE Project: Exploring the geologic and hydrologic processes that shape the Bangladesh region Three of the world’s largest rivers, the Ganges, the Brahmaputra, and the Meghna, converge in the country of Bangladesh and dump one gigaton of sediment there annually to form the world’s largest delta (The Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna Delta, or GBMD). This delta overlies the rapidly subsiding junction of three tectonic plates.
Read more		 2012-11
UNAVCO provides improved access to SAR satellite imagery UNAVCO has unified access to SAR archive interfaces, allowing researchers to search one database for all available imagery. The new SAR database with geospatial searches allows for more efficient searches and automated downloading, saving time and effort for researchers looking for SAR images.
Read more		 2012-11
RESESS Interns Take on the Challenge of Research Imagine doing a summer research project and submitting an abstract to a national meeting in just over two months. This past summer, 17 college students converged in Boulder, Colorado to participate in the RESESS internship and take on this challenge.
Read more		 2012-11
Join us at GSA! (2012) Come find us at Booth #1110 in Charlotte, North Carolina at the annual GSA meeting
Read more		 2012-11
Community Event Response to the 5 September 2012, Mw=7.6 Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica Earthquake On Wednesday, September 5, 2012, at 14:42:07 UTC, a magnitude 7.6 earthquake struck roughly 40 km (25 miles) below the surface of the Earth, 10 km (6.2 miles) ESE of the city of Nicoya, Costa Rica. This earthquake occurred beneath the Nicoya Peninsula of Costa Rica as the result of thrust faulting on the subduction zone interface between the subducting Cocos and overriding Caribbean plates.
Read more		 2012-09
TLS survey campaign of Thrihnukagigur Volcano, Iceland In late June of 2012, UNAVCO provided continued support for Dr. LaFemina with a second TLS survey campaign in Iceland. A Leica C10 scanner was used to scan the inner chamber, shaft and surrounding area above the Thrihnukagigur Volcano. Over the course of 7 days, 18 scan positions were occupied and over 500 million points collected. In comparison, previous surveys of the magma chamber using land-surveying equipment produced only 1200 points.
Read more		 2012-09
Glaciological dynamics of a debris-covered alpine glacier using Terrestrial Laser Scanning: Potential impacts for water resources and natural hazards As part of ongoing research that seeks to understand the implications of glacier retreat at Volcán Chimborazo, Ecuador, researchers from Ohio State University are attempting to quantify both the rate and extent of glacier retreat on the mountain in recent years.
Read more		 2012-06
Hydrology at the Base of the Greenland Ice Sheet What role does water play in the movement of the vast Greenland Ice Sheet? This integrated measurement and modeling project is a comprehensive investigation of this very question. Conditions at the base of the glacier will be directly measured in six boreholes drilled to the bed, with two holes at each of three sites. Surface melt and spatial gradients in ice velocity will be quantified to enable detailed comparison between melt water forcing, basal hydrologic conditions, and ice flow dynamics.
Read more		 2012-06
Join UNAVCO at the 2009 AGU Fall Meeting The AGU Fall Meeting is expected to draw a crowd of over 16,000 geophysicists from around the world. The Fall Meeting provides an opportunity for researchers, teachers, students, and consultants to present and review the latest issues affecting Earth, planets, and their environments in space.
Read more		 2009-12
Long-Range Geodesy Community Planning In response to new and emerging research opportunities in geodesy and its interdisciplinary applications, the geodesy community is preparing a written plan in a Grand Challenges format, identifying emerging science questions, required workforce development and diversity, and needed instrumentation and facilities. The intention is to have a draft by AGU and final plan by January 2010. This plan will inform a number of other national science planning initiatives anticipated in 2010.
Read more		 2009-09
UNAVCO Strategic Plan 2009-2013 UNAVCO has just unveiled its new Strategic Plan, a document that will guide the organization's activities over the next five years. After a one year planning and revision process led by UNAVCO President M. Meghan Miller, a full color version of the plan that includes many new community graphics was distributed at the American Geophysical Union's Fall Meeting in San Francisco December, 2008.
Read more		 2009-01
EarthScope and UNAVCO host exhibit at 2012 USA Science and Engineering Festival The second USA Science and Engineering Festival took place in Washington, D.C. April 27-29, 2012. Over 150,000 people participated during the 3 day event, with over 3,000 interactive exhibits, more than 100 stage shows and 33 author presentations to explore.
Read more		 2012-04
Summer Internship a Success Imagine having the chance to do mini grad school while still an undergraduate and doing it with extra support. In the RESESS internship this summer, college students did geoscience research with lots of encouragement from mentors and peers. Research topics ranged from looking at earthquake-triggered landslides to finding geologic faults to looking at zircons affected by a huge asteroid impact.
Read more		 2010-11
UNAVCO Presents LiDAR Demonstration on Capitol Hill UNAVCO's David Phillips gave a Terrestrial LiDAR Scanning (TLS) demo on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, as part of the 15th Annual Science-Engineering-Technology Congressional Visits Day (CVD) and LaserFest Reception. Phillips performed LiDAR scans of several congressional representatives and other attendees at an evening reception on Wednesday, April 28, 2010.
Read more		 2010-04
Teaching Geodesy in the 21st Century - An "On the Cutting Edge" and UNAVCO Workshop In March of 2010, UNAVCO Education and Outreach staff and collaborators held a workshop to help college-level teachers incorporate geodesy and new teaching techniques into their courses. Teaching Geodesy in the 21st Century - An On the Cutting Edge - UNAVCO Workshop, drew sixteen enthusiastic and engaged professors, teachers, a post doc, and graduate student from around the country to Boulder, CO.
Read more		 2010-04
UNAVCO Hosts Online GPS Workshop for Faculty in Texas Using online tools, UNAVCO Education Specialist Shelley Olds facilitated a three-hour workshop entitled GPS Geodesy as Windows on Earth: Discoveries using GPS and other Geodetic Techniques on February 3, 2010 during the Earth and Space Science 4X4 series of workshops provided by the Region 12 Education Center in Central Texas.
Read more		 2010-02
In the News: UNAVCO Community Science is 'What's Hot' Recent tectonic activity around the world has sparked a rise in news coverage regarding the UNAVCO science community. We'd like to take this opportunity to remind you how to stay in touch with UNAVCO news. We update the UNAVCO Newsroom with recent articles as they come in.
Read more		 2010-01
RESESS Celebrates 5 Years of Research, Mentoring, and Community Research Experiences in Solid Earth Science (RESESS) celebrated five years of research, mentoring, and community on August 6, 2009. We acknowledged the 2009 RESESS participants' achievements during a morning colloquium and afternoon poster session together with students participating in Significant Opportunities in Atmospheric Research and Science (SOARS).
Read more		 2009-08
UNAVCO Events at the AGU Fall Meeting 2008 Join the UNAVCO Community in San Francisco, CA at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting in December, 2008. New this year, UNAVCO will offer presentations at the UNAVCO Booth in the Exhibition Hall at the Moscone Center. A list of presentations and times can be found below. The booth presentations are informal and will allow time for Q&A.
Read more		 2008-12
New Game Incorporates EarthScope Science: Volcano Island The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (HSCA) has developed an interactive game, Volcano Island, aimed at middle school students to teach about EarthScope-related science. In the game, the user is the mayor of a town on the fictional Volcano Island, home to the rumbling Mt. Leakytop Volcano.
Read more		 2008-12
UNAVCO Holds Bilingual Educator Workshop in Puerto Rico: Many UNAVCO Educational Materials now Available in Spanish UNAVCO, in collaboration with the Puerto Rico NASA Space Grant Program and the University of Puerto Rico in Mayagüez, held an educator's workshop entitled “Introducing GPS and its Applications in Earth Science to Educators of Puerto Rico” on September 27, 2008 in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico.
Read more		 2008-09
RESESS Intern Publishes in Nature Geoscience Stephen Hernández, a UNAVCO RESESS (Research Experience in Solid Earth Science for Students) intern since 2005, is second author on a widely noted paper published in Nature Geoscience's May 2008 issue. The paper, Global ubiquity of dynamic earthquake triggering (Velasco et al.), explores the theory of earthquake triggering, but as a global phenomenon.
Read more		 2008-08
Boy Scouts of America use UNAVCO GPS Technology for Sustainability at the Philmont Scout Ranch, New Mexico The Philmont Scout Ranch, a place Boy Scouts go to embark on backpacking expeditions into the high country of the New Mexican Rockies, employs a conservation staff to ensure the integrity of the pristine wilderness.
Read more		 2008-07
UNAVCO's Short Course Series Covered LiDAR, Strainmeter, InSAR, and GPS Data UNAVCO offered a series of well-attended short courses on how to work with our various datasets over the summer, including LiDAR, strainmeter and tiltmeter, and InSAR. These courses were aimed at current researchers who want to update their skills or branch into new areas of research, and younger scientists such as postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, and upper level undergraduates interested in an introduction to a new research tool.
Read more		 2008-06
UNAVCO Education and Outreach Supports the TXESS Revolution UNAVCO gave a teacher workshop on using Global Positioning System (GPS) data in the classroom in April 2008 as part of the TeXas Earth and Space Science Revolution (TXESS Revolution) teacher professional development program, which is being led by PI Kathy Ellins of the University of Texas, Austin.
Read more		 2008-04
Gap Year in Alaska Leads Fort Lewis College Student to Geology Major [External article] Ally spent her gap year interning as a field assistant with a scientific organization and working in her father's stone masonry business. She graduated from Nederland High School in Colorado in 2006, a year early. She is a freshman at Fort Lewis College in Durango, CO, majoring in Geology.
Read article »		 2008-01
Cluster of Seven EarthScope Borehole Strainmeter Instruments in the Anza Region The Plate Boundary Observatory is installing a cluster of seven borehole strainmeter instruments in the Anza region in southern California. This area is of geophysical interest because of its position between two major faults: the San Andreas Fault and the San Jacinto Fault.
Read more		 2006-07
Teaching in Small Groups Gets Big Results for an Introductory Geology Class Professor Michael Hamburger of Indiana University recently finished leading his fourth G188 class through the Eastern Sierra Nevada in California.
Read more		 2006-07
Roger Groom of Portland, Oregon is UNAVCO's 2006 Master Teacher UNAVCO is pleased to announce its out-of-state selection for the 2006 master teacher summer program, Roger Groom, from Mt. Tabor Middle School in Portland, OR. Groom has a Masters of Education from Portland State University and completed the Graduate Teacher Education Program at Portland State University.
Read more		 2006-03
2006 UNAVCO Faculty-in-Residence Summer Program The UNAVCO Faculty-in-Residence summer program is a new initiative designed to involve a college/university faculty member in UNAVCO education and outreach endeavors. The successful candidate will be an energetic, active member of the UNAVCO community who teaches introductory/general education college geoscience courses. This individual will work at UNAVCO headquarters in Boulder, CO for one week in June 2006.
Read more		 2006-06
Teacher Workshops to Teach Teachers to Teach About Technology and Tectonics On January 26-27, UNAVCO education specialist Becca Walker worked with middle and high school Earth science teachers at the IRIS Consortium's Yuma Union School District Earth science teacher professional development project. Held at Cibola High School in Yuma, AZ, the workshop was designed to improve and align Earth science instruction in grades 7 and 9/10 and included activities by IRIS, UNAVCO, Boston College, Purdue University, and SCEC.
Read more		 2006-02
Community Event Response to the 23 August 2011, Mw=5.8 Virginia Earthquake On Tuesday, August 23, 2011, at 17:51:04 UTC, a magnitude 5.8 earthquake struck roughly 6 km (3.7 miles) below the surface of the Earth, 8 km (5 miles) southwest of Mineral, Virginia. The earthquake occurred within the Central Virginia Seismic Zone, which has produced many small and moderate earthquakes throughout recorded human history in the area, including a magnitude 4.8 in 1875 and a 4.5 event in 2003.
Read more		 2011-08
UNAVCO Community Response to the 11 March 2011, Mw=9.0 Tohoku, Japan Earthquake and Tsunami A magnitude 9.0 earthquake occurred at 02:46:23 PM local time on March 11, 2011, near the east coast of Honshu, Japan. Five minutes in duration, it triggered a tsunami of more than 10 m in height, causing immense damage along the northeast coast of Japan.
Read more		 2011-03
The Magnitude 6.3 South Island New Zealand Earthquake, Feb. 21, 2011 A magnitude 6.3 earthquake occurred Tuesday, February 22, 2011, at 12:51:43 PM local time (Feb. 21, 2011 at 23:51:43 UTC), close to Christchurch, New Zealand. No tsunami was reported. At least 160 people died with many more left missing.
Read more		 2011-03
Caribbean GPS Network to Aid Earthquake and Hurricane Forecasting A proposed network of GPS stations in the pan-Caribbean region will aid the monitoring, understanding, and prediction of earthquakes, hurricanes, flooding, volcanoes, and landslides.
Una nueva red expandida de estaciones de GPS en la región del Caribe va a ayudar con el monitoreo, entendimiento, y predicción de terremotos, tsunamis, huracanes, inundaciones, volcanes, y deslizamientos de tierra.
Read more		 2011-01
Join UNAVCO at the 2010 AGU Fall Meeting The AGU Fall Meeting is expected to draw a crowd of over 18,000 geophysicists from around the world. The Fall Meeting provides an opportunity for researchers, teachers, students, and consultants to present and review the latest issues affecting Earth, planets, and their environments in space.
Read more		 2010-12
Cascadia Project Recognized in "100 Recovery Act Projects" Report The National Science Foundation's Earth Sciences (EAR) Division received $5M in facility-related investment as a part of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, or ARRA. Some of this is being awarded to UNAVCO to upgrade the communications at GPS sites in the Pacific Northwest.
Read more		 2010-10
The Scientific Value of High-Rate, Low-Latency GPS Data; A White Paper [PDF] Ongoing upgrades of western U.S. GPS networks to high-rate, low-latency data transmission capabilities has drawn attention to the interest that the scientific community has in these data. GPS provides an essential complement to other geophysical networks (e.g. seismic, strain, gravity) because of its high precision, sensitivity to the longest period bands, its ease of deployment, and its ability to make measurements of displacement that are local to global in scale.
Download PDF »		 2010-09
UNAVCO Event Response to the Mw=7.0, Christchurch, New Zealand Earthquake, Sept. 3, 2010 A magnitude 7.0 earthquake occurred Saturday, September 3, 2010 at 04:35:46 AM local time, 50km to the west of Christchurch, New Zealand and 80-90km to the southeast of the Australia-Pacific plate boundary.
Read more		 2010-09
UNAVCO Event Response to the Mw=7.2 El Mayor-Cucapah Baja California, Mexico, Earthquake April 4, 2010 A magnitude 7.2 earthquake occurred at 3:40 p.m. PT on Sunday, April 4th, 2010, 39 miles (63 km) SSE of Calexico, CA, in the upper Baja California peninsula of Mexico. Tremors lasted 40 seconds causing extensive damage to buildings in the area. The earthquake has been named the El Mayor-Cucapah earthquake.
Read more		 2010-04
UNAVCO Event Response - Mw=8.8 Chile Earthquake Feb. 27, 2010 UNAVCO operates the NASA/GGN GPS station near Santiago (SANT), which is a high rate station set to log at 1 Hz (Fig. 12). SANT is located on the grounds of NASA's Santiago Tracking Station, 38 Km North of Santiago, Chile.
Read more		 2010-02
UNAVCO Event Response - Mw=7 Haiti Earthquake 1/12/2010 In response to community requests after the Mw=7 Haiti Earthquake 1/12/2010, UNAVCO has compiled data sets and is preparing campaign GPS and TLS hardware for anticipated deployment to the Haiti region.
Read more		 2010-01
InSAR Data Shows Evidence of Coseismic Deformation - Gulf of CA Earthquake, August 3, 2009 Across the central Gulf of California the Pacific-North America plate boundary is localized in the Ballenas channel, which separates Isla Angel de la Guarda from the Baja California Peninsula (BAJA). At about 45 mm/yr, the Ballenas Transform represents a fast moving strike-slip fault.
Read more		 2009-08
UNAVCO Polar Support Offers Scientists a New Look at Glaciology New advances in understanding the dynamics of ice sheets in the most remote polar regions of the world have been made possible by technological advances in GPS systems. Eight new GPS stations, designed and built by UNAVCO as a result of the 3 year NSF funded Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) Project Collaborative Research.
Read more		 2009-03
The Great Southern California ShakeOut UNAVCO participated in the Great Southern California ShakeOut on November 13, 2008. We responded to the simulated magnitude 7.8 ShakeOut event as if it were a real earthquake, providing us with an opportunity to test our response procedures for a similar event in the western United States.
Read more		 2008-11
Terrestrial Laser Scanning Study of Gully Erosion at West Bijou Creek Escarpment, Arapahoe County, Colorado: An Investigation on Field Acquisition and Data Processing Terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) or ground based LiDAR (light detection and ranging) is a relatively new technology that digitally maps geological outcrops at mm to cm resolution. We report here the results of a trial TLS project that had two main aims: collecting scans for monitoring gully erosion and conducting a survey to connect field methods of TLS with geomorphology.
Read more		 2008-08
GPS and InSAR Study of the 2005 Eruption of Sierra Negra Volcano, Galápagos, Ecuador A team of scientists investigated the 2005 eruption of Sierra Negra volcano in the Galápagos Archipelago using GPS and InSAR data as well as petrologic and geochemical analyses.
Read more		 2008-04
Plate Tectonics in the East African Rift D. Sarah Stamps, a first-year graduate student at Purdue University, is the lead-author on a paper presenting "A kinematic model for the East African Rift" published recently in 'Geophysical Research Letters' (Stamps et al., 2008) and highlighted by the American Geophysical Union.
Read more		 2008-04
2008 UNAVCO Science Workshop a Success! The 2008 UNAVCO Science Workshop, held in Boulder, CO at the Millennium Harvest Hotel from March 11-13, was well attended, drawing 190 attendees from as far away as New Zealand and Italy, including 20 UNAVCO-supported students, three of which are RESESS interns, and 50 UNAVCO employees. The workshop was a mix of Science Session talks related to UNAVCO-supported science, breakout Special Interest Groups (SIGs), poster sessions, and field trips.
Read more		 2008-03
UNAVCO Community Scientist Andria Bilich Receives 2007 Bradford Parkinson Award [PDF] The Institute of Navigation (http://www.ion.org/) presented its Bradford Parkinson Award for the year 2007 to Dr Andria Bilich of the National Geodetic Survey. This award is given annually to honor an outstanding graduate student in the field of Global Navigation Satellite Systems.
Download PDF »		 2008-02
NSF Funds Joint Major Research Infrastructure Proposal between IRIS and UNAVCO The National Science Foundation recently awarded funding to IRIS and UNAVCO for a unique proposal to design and build a reliable power and communication system for autonomous polar station operation. This development effort will involve close collaboration with Antarctic seismologists and GPS scientists.
Read more		 2006-07
A Successful Meeting: The 2006 UNAVCO Science Workshop UNAVCO held its Science Workshop March 14-16, 2006 at the Brown Palace Hotel in Denver, Colorado. 154 attendees converged on the Brown Palace for the 2 ½ day event. 18 of those attendees were UNAVCO members and another 18 were students receiving support from UNAVCO to attend the meeting.
Read more		 2006-04
2006 Short Courses: GPS and Strainmeter Data UNAVCO is pleased to announce the 2006 Short Courses will commence in June with two programs: GPS and Strainmeter Data. Both courses will be held at UNAVCO headquarters in Boulder, Colorado with experts in the UNAVCO community leading the instruction.
Read more		 2006-06
International Collaboration for GPS Research in Iceland Is Hot Continuous GPS made the national news in Iceland this month after the Icelandic Center for Research (RANNIS) awarded funding for a significant expansion of continuous GPS networks in Iceland. The project titled "High-rate continuous GPS observations in Iceland" represents an international collaborative effort to construct a spatially dense high-rate continuously operating GPS network across the island of Iceland.
Read more		 2006-02
2006 Western Pacific Geophysics Meeting: 24-27 July 2006, Beijing China The Western Pacific Geophysics Meeting will be held in Beijing, China, July 24-27, 2006. It is sponsored by AGU and several other societies in the western Pacific region. This is an excellent opportunity for members interested in the research of the western Pacific region and all related aspects of geophysics.
Read more		 2006-07
2006 UNAVCO Science Workshop The 2006 UNAVCO Science Workshop will be held at the Brown Palace Hotel, in Denver, Colorado. The 2 1/2 day workshop will include planned science sessions, poster presentations, breakout discussions, and informal meetings, along with a field trip to Red Rocks Park.
Read more		 2006-03
2005 UNAVCO Intern Presents Multipath Research at Society for Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science Conference UNAVCO's Research Experience in Solid Earth Science for Students (RESESS) program launched in the summer of 2005 with intern Stephen Hernández. Stephen conducted research with mentor Dr. Kristine Larson of the University of Colorado and staff at UNAVCO on multipath sources at the Parkfield GPS array.
Read more		 2005-11
Preliminary analyses of the 12/26/2004 Mw 9.0 Earthquake in Indonesia Dr. Jeff Freymueller (University of Alaska) has analyzed the most recent data from the CGPS site SAMP (Sampali, Medan, Sumatra), located on the east coast of Sumatra. The solutions for the coseismic offset below represent the average of one week before and one week after the quake. Pre-quake solutions use JPL final orbits, post-quake use JPL rapid, and all solutions have been independently transformed to ITRF2000.
Read more		 2005-01
Glacial Rebound GPS is measuring the present motions associated with the response of the earth to the great mile-thick ice sheets that covered the area 18,000 years ago. Long after the glaciers melted, we use the Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites to "see" the land moving -- up to half an inch per year in some places -- as the earth rebounds in response to the ice that once pushed the land down.
Read more		 2004-07
Strategic Planning Meeting - May, 2004 A Strategic Planning Meeting was held at Estes Park, Colorado as a first step in preparing a strategic plan to guide UNAVCO over the time period 2005 to 2009.
Read more		 2004-05
PBO Paso Robles Earthquake Response On December 22, 2003, a magnitude 6.5 earthquake occurred on the Oceanic fault zone in the Santa Lucia Mountains of coastal Central California. The earthquake killed two people and collapsed or severely damaged 40 buildings in the Paso Robles-Templeton area.
Read more		 2003-12
Alaskan Magnitude 7.9 Denali fault earthquake of November 3, 2002 The magnitude 7.9 Denali fault earthquake of November 3, 2002 resulted from right-lateral offset along portions of the Denali and Totschunda fault systems in Alaska. Total length of the rupture was at least 300 km (190 miles).
Read more		 2002-11
Global Strain Rate Map Project In 1998 the International Lithosphere Program (ILP) initiated the Global Strain Rate Map Project. As a major component to the Global Strain Rate Map Project, Kreemer et al. [2001a] have determined a global strain rate model. The global strain rate model is the first model to describe the kinematics of the plates and the deformation zones between the plates for all of the Earth's surface.
Read more		 2001-12
Groundwater pumping masks tectonic deformation near Los Angeles, California US Geological Survey and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory geophysicists made two significant findings about how and why the ground moves beneath Los Angeles. The researchers combined satellite radar images and Global Position System (GPS) observations to measure more accurately than ever before the tectonic squeezing of the region that is responsible for earthquakes like the 1987 M=6 Whittier Narrows and M=6.7 Northridge shocks.
Read more		 2001-11
1/30/1997 eruptive event on Kilauea Continuous GPS measurements preceding the January 30, 1997 eruption on Kilauea volcano, Hawaii constrain the temporal evolution of deformation associated with dike propagation in unprecedented detail [Owen et al., 2000]. Figure 1 shows the horizontal displacements spanning the intrusion/eruption as determined from a combination of campaign and permanent GPS data.
Read more		 2001-07
White Sands Dune Migration UNAVCO provided support for Dr. Ryan Ewing's (University of Alabama) first TLS survey campaign to the White Sands National Monument. Scanning was carried out over the course of four days in three separate locations within the monument.
Read more		 2012-03
2011-12 Antarctic Season Highlights During the 2011-12 Antarctic field season, UNAVCO deployed 5 engineers, 88 GPS receivers, 3 Terrestrial Laser Scanner (TLS) instruments, and a large volume of ancillary equipment in support of a record 34 PI science projects. Including 2 more field engineer and 14 receiver deployments as part of the POLENET project.
Read more		 2012-03
The Polar Earth Observing Network (POLENET) 2011/2012 Field Season The POLENET (Polar Earth Observing Network) project focuses on collecting GPS and seismic data from autonomous systems deployed at remote sites spanning much of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets. GPS and seismic measurements together provide a means to answer critical questions about ice sheet behavior.
Read more		 2012-02
Nicoya Peninsula continuous GPS network telemetry upgrades and COCONet network expansion The Nicoya Peninsula continuous GPS network consists of 18 remote sites distributed mostly in the forearc of the Cocos subduction zone in northwest Costa Rica. The network is designed to measure transient surface deformation above the seismogenic plate-boundary interface. The network was established and expanded in several stages beginning in 2006.
Read more		 2012-01
Installation of Two Deep Drilled-Braced Monuments and One Short Drilled-Braced Monument at The Goddard Geophysical and Astronomical Observatory In 2011, a collaborative NASA-funded Space Geodesy Project was initiated. Jointly operated by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and Jet Propulsion Laboratories, the project is focused on constructing, operating, and maintaining a NASA Space Geodetic Network (NSGN) of integrated, multi-technique next generation space geodetic observing systems.
Read more		 2012-01
EarthScope Project: Measurements of Crustal Deformation in the Rio Grande Rift Region The Rio Grande Rift GPS Experiment, funded by the National Science Foundation's EarthScope program, provides a regional enhancement to the broader Plate Boundary Observatory (PBO) network. Its purpose is to measure relative motions at the Earth's surface and determine how the Rio Grande Rift region in Colorado and New Mexico is deforming.
Read more		 2011
PLUTONS GPS Installations, Part 3 PLUTONS is an integrative geophysical, geochemical, and geomorphological study involving researchers from many US, Canadian, South American, and British institutions. The project aims to uncover evidence for active mid-crustal intrusion and crustal formation at Uturuncu and Lazufre volcanoes, located in the central Andes.
Read more		 2011-11
Haiti GPS Network Following the earthquake of Jan 2010, 6 CGPS stations were installed in key locations around Haiti to measure the after effects and ongoing activity in the region. Of these 6 stations, only 1 was transmitting data back to UNAVCO reliably by the middle of 2011. It was determined from reconnaissance trips by local collaborators that the data transmission issues were due, for the most part, to system failures and one was actually caused by theft of the entire system. With that information in hand, a maintenance trip was deemed necessary.
Read more		 2011-11
Geodynamics of Ridge Collision on the Caribbean Plate and Panama Block: Part 2 Network Completion During a two week trip in November 2011, two additional continuous GPS stations were installed to complete a network designed to measure the deformation of the Panama tectonic block. This project is part of ongoing research on the geodynamics of the plate tectonic regiem in Central America. One of these stations is also part of a larger National Science Foundation project called CocoNet.
Read more		 2011-11
Carbon Sequestration monitoring using GPS Carbon Sequestration is a process for mitigating the contribution to global warming by capturing the excess CO2 emitted from fossil fuel burning power plants (and other industrial facilities). The CO2 is captured at its source and then injected into depleted oil and gas reservoirs.
Read more		 2011-10
GPS as a snow sensor: Doc's Meadow installation Snow is an important component of the climate system and a critical storage component in the hydrologic cycle. However, in situ observations of snow distribution are sparse, and remotely sensed products are imprecise and only available at a coarse spatial scale. While GPS geodesists have long recognized that snow can affect a GPS signal, it was only recently shown that a GPS receiver placed in a standard geodetic orientation can be used to measure snow depth.
Read more		 2011-10
Santorini, Greece GPS Network Installations and Upgrades Santorini is one of a group of five islands belonging to a partially submerged caldera in the Aegean Sea. The volcanic system responsible for the formation of the caldera is currently still active and last erupted in 1950.
Read more		 2011-09
Quantifying fluvial erosion rates on Cascade Volcanoes The goal of the project is to develop data sets that can be used to model erosion and deposition along rivers draining two Cascade volcanoes, Mt. Rainier and Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument. The project has two components, one focusing on processes of sedimentation on Tahoma Creek on Mt. Rainier, the other focusing on processes of erosion on the North Fork Toutle River near Mt. St Helens.
Read more		 2011-08
Denali Dinosaur Dance-floor: Capturing a Mega-tracksite with Terrestrial Lidar for science, education and preservation Over two weeks in August, 2011 a team of scientists from three countries and four institutions collaborated on a field expedition to map, collect samples and identify dinosaur footprints and other trace fossils within a Late Cretaceous age outcrop located in Denali National Park. UNAVCO provided, equipment, logistical, and technical support for collecting a terrestrial lidar data set of the exposed dinosaur "dance floor."
Read more		 2011-08
First CocoNET Continuously Operating GPS Station Installed COCONet seeks to understand the factors that control earthquake and hurricane hazards by adding 50 high-precision permanent GPS stations to 50 existing ones. These instruments are able to detect millimeter changes in the movement of Earth's crust and atmospheric water vapor that helps predict the path of hurricanes.
Read more		 2011-06
San Jacinto Fault Scanned with a Terrestrial Laser Scanner (TLS) Collecting geologic evidence from major pre-historic earthquakes provides clues to Earth's ancient seismic events. One method of data collection is to dissect a portion of ground across a known active fault, and catalogue, measure, and date the sediment left after each earthquake. Dr. Rockwell and his team are searching for the paleoseismic history of the southern San Jacinto Fault, namely the Clark strand.
Read more		 2011-06
Shetland Islands Climate and Settlement Project 2011 Researchers from several colleges in Maine, including Bates College, the University of Maine and the University of Southern Maine, are working together on a multidisciplinary and international 3-year NSF project focusing on the severe climate transformations of the Shetland Islands, the most northern of the Scottish Isles.
Read more		 2011-06
Mt. Pinatubo Terrestrial Laser Scanning Mt. Pintaubo (Philippines) erupted in 1991 and deposited up to 6km cubed of pyroclastic material in the drainage basins of the volcano. One of these drainages, The Pasig Potrero, is a river system that flows off the eastern flank of the volcano. 14km downslope of the summit crater, the river expands into a wide, braided alluvium over half a kilometer in width.
Read more		 2011-06
Geodynamics of Ridge Collision on the Caribbean Plate and Panama Block During a three week trip in May 2011, a team consisting of members from Penn State University (PSU), the Instituto de Geociencias at the Universidad de Panama (IGC), and UNAVCO constructed four permanent GPS monuments with power and telemetry systems. Additional reconnaissance for three or four new monuments was completed for a future trip.
Read more		 2011-05
Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) Surveys in Everglades National Park Terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) surveys were conducted in March 2011 at four LTER (Long Term Ecological Research) study sites in Everglades National Park. TLS measurements are used to construct the vegetation structure and above ground biomass in 4 disparate vegetation communities. The vegetation community is defined by mangrove development and taxonomy at the site.
Read more		 2011-03
Volcanic Flank Deformation and Stability: Arenal Case Study - Facility Highlights 2011 The Arenal Volcano, located in north-western Costa Rica, about 90 km northwest of San José, has been one of the ten most active volcanoes in the world until recently. Measuring 1,633 metres (5,358 ft), it is conically shaped with a crater spanning 140 metres (460 ft). As one of the youngest and historically most active volcanoes of all the mountains in Costa Rica, it had remained largely unexplored until the 1930s, with the first documented expedition taking place in 1937 to reach the summit.
Read more		 2011-03
Antarctic Program Support 2010-2011 During the 2010-11 Antarctic field season the UNAVCO polar group supported an unprecedented 33 individual PI-based science campaign projects. One hundred twenty receivers and 28,000 pounds of supporting gear was sent to the continent for campaign support, including thirty five new NetR9 systems and twelve netR8's. Nineteen of the NetR9 receivers remain on the ice to support long term data collection at the Whillans Ice stream (WISSARD) and the Byrd Glacier.
Read more		 2011-02
POLENET 2010/11 Four continuous GPS stations were installed as part of the POLENET Antarctica network during the 2010/11 field campaign. Three planned stations remain uninstalled due to inclement weather in West Antarctica, and one station remains uninstalled due to lack of suitable bedrock site in the target area.
Read more		 2011-02
TLS Survey of Fourmile Canyon Wildfire Captures Post-fire Terrain Changes A wildfire occurred in Fourmile Canyon near Boulder, CO in September 2010. The fire provided scientists a rare opportunity to study the geomorphic processes that occur soon after large wildfires. Researchers from the US Geological Survey and the University of Colorado in Boulder, employ a terrestrial laser scanner (TLS) to map micro-scale geomorphic features within a small watershed in the burn-zone.
Read more		 2010-12
PLUTONS Project (Part II) UNAVCO finished up its second round of field support for the PLUTONS project in early November of this year. PLUTONS is a collaborative effort involving The University of Alaska Fairbanks, Cornell University, Montana State University, Oregon State University, The University of Alberta, University of Bristol, UC Santa Cruz, and multiple organizations from Chile and Bolivia.
Read more		 2010-11
Brewster (BREW) GGN Station Maintenance Starting in 2007, the GGN station located in Brewster, Washington underwent a series of equipment upgrades including: installation of an Ashtech receiver running the latest firmware, CQ00, and installation of a new 2U rackmount computer running Fedora 4.
Read more		 2010-11
Sierra Negra GPS Network Upgrade (Final Phase) The second and final phase of the GPS network upgrade at Sierra Negra volcano on Isabella Island in the Galapagos was completed in November by a field team of four from U.S. and Ecuadorian institutions. The continuous GPS network has been operational since 2002 when six permanent sites were installed by UNAVCO.
Read more		 2010-11
Africa Array GPS Network Africa Array, initialized in 2004, is a project that aims to establish research and training programs in the geosciences for Africans, within Africa. The continent is rich in mineral, petroleum, and geothermal resources and demand for trained geoscientists to manage these resources is growing. However, this need is not being met.
Read more		 2010-09
Integration of TLS and Continuous GPS to Study Landslide Deformation Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) and Global Positioning System (GPS) technologies provide comprehensive information of landslide deformation in the both spatial and temporal domains, which are critical to study the dynamics and kinematics of landslides.
Read more		 2010-08
Using TLS to Improve Models of Volcano Conduit Processes In volcanology, diverse numerical models of conduit flow have been developed to relate the properties of these flows to processes that occur at the surface during eruptions. Conduit models incorporate varying degrees of complexity and account for the transport properties of magmas, steady-state or transient behavior, and conduit geometry (e.g., 1- to 1.5 D, variable width and erodable conduit walls).
Read more		 2010-08
Introducing TLS to Undergraduate Geology Curricula During the summer of 2010, a pilot version of a week-long module designed to apply Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) to various problems encountered while conducting field geology applications was embedded within the Indiana University G429 field course. The format followed that of a successful module developed to concentrate on surface and groundwater hydrology known as G429e.
Read more		 2010-08
Measuring Above Ground Biomass and Vegetation Structure in the South Florida Everglades Wetland Ecosystem Worldwide, anthropogenic activities are disturbing and disrupting nutrient rich bio-diverse wetland ecosystems. Disturbance of the South Florida Everglades has been particularly acute, but difficult to quantify given its limited accessibility. Successful ecosystem monitoring requires the use of remote sensing.
Read more		 2010-08
Circumpolar Active Layer Monitoring Network – CALM II Since the 1990s, the Circumpolar Active Layer Monitoring (CALM) program has conducted long-term studies of the response of the Arctic permafrost to climate change. Every summer, a certain depth of the top layer of the tundra's permafrost thaws and this is known as the "active layer."
Read more		 2010-08
GPS campaign of East African Rift Zone A GPS survey of the East African Rift Zone in Tanzania occurred over three weeks in August 2010. The project involved researchers, staff and graduate students from Purdue University (USA) and Ardhi University in Tanzania, with equipment, logistic and field support from UNAVCO.
Read more		 2010-08
Goddard Geophysical and Astronomical Observatory UNAVCO Facility personnel traveled to Goddard's Geophysical and Astronomical Observatory (GGAO) located in Greenbelt, Maryland in order to setup two temporary GPS campaign systems over known marks as construction was commencing on the area that will be home to the next generation VLBI antenna.
Read more		 2010-07
QUIN IGS/GGN Station Maintenance II The GGN station located in Quincy, California (QUIN) continued to exhibit communication problems after a site visit earlier this summer where it was determined that the pole supporting the dish was not sturdy enough and needed to be replaced. During this most recent visit, a new Hughes DW7000 VSAT system was installed in order to restore communications to the station.
Read more		 2010-07
IGS Meeting 2010 During June 28 - July 2, 2010 the Newcastle University geodesy group hosted approximately 200 participants in the International GNSS Service (IGS) Workshop 2010 and the COST Action ES0701 Vertical Rates Symposium. The Workshop focused on the application and status of current IGS operations and possibilities for future improvements.
Read more		 2010-07
Chile Rapid Response Data Communications A great earthquake of magnitude 8.8 occurred on February 27, in Southern Chile. The Chilean earthquake caused a deadly tsunami, widespread property damage, and at least 521 casualties. This was the single largest event in the world since the December 26, 2004 magnitude 9.1 earthquake in Sumatra that also caused a deadly tsunami.
Read more		 2010-07
QUIN IGS/GGN Station Maintenance The GGN station located in Quincy, California recently went offline and a site visit was needed in order to restore its internet link. The station is accessed through the Mount Hough Ranger Station in Plumas County. The station is located on top of a hill, which can only be accessed through a locked gate which is shared with the Plumas County Repellars.
Read more		 2010-06
SMAP Validation Project The SMAP (Soil Moisture Active & Passive) Validation project is funded by NASA with collaborators from the University of Colorado at Boulder and UCAR. The purpose of the SMAP Validation project is to provide an independent means to validate the results of the SMAP satellite mission using GPS signals received at ground-based sensor sites.
Read more		 2010-05
LARISSA 2010, Antarctica LARISSA: Larsen Ice Shelf System, Antarctica is a National Science Foundation funded initiative that brings an international, interdisciplinary team together to address a significant regional problem with global change implications, the abrupt environmental change in Antarctica's Larsen Ice Shelf System.
Read more		 2010-04
PLUTONS Project The PLUTONS project is a NSF funded collaborative study including researchers from Cornell University, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Montana State University, Bristol University, UC Santa Cruz, Oregon State University, and the University of Alberta.
Read more		 2010-04
St. Helena GNSS Station The St. Helena Island Meteo office is now home to a permanent GNSS station on the island. The station is providing a one second stream of GPS + GLONASS data on the newly constructed pillar monument. The installation of this station was a collaborative effort between NASA-JPL, UNAVCO, SEGAL (UBI,IDL) Portugal, and the St. Helena Meteo office.
Read more		 2010-03
Antarctic Program Support 2009-2010 During the 2009-10 Antarctic field season, the UNAVCO polar group supported 23 individual PI-based science campaign projects. Forty five receivers were sent to the continent for campaign support, including ten NetRS systems. Nine of these NetRS receivers remain on the ice to support long term data collection at WAIS divide under the upcoming WISSARD project, including one configured to relay data back to UNAVCO via Iridium modem.
Read more		 2010-03
Telica Volcano On any given day, approximately 15-30 volcanoes worldwide are either in eruption or show strong signs of unrest (e.g., anomalously high rates of seismic activity, ground deformation, or gas emissions). Volcanic activity, including high-altitude eruptions of ash or emission of large volumes of gas, poses a significant hazard to people and property in the United States and worldwide.
Read more		 2010-03
Haiti Earthquake Response GPS Network PI Eric Calais acquired NSF RAPID funding immediately after the January earthquake in Haiti to conduct a GPS campaign in Port-Au-Prince and other towns in the region of the main fault. UNAVCO received part of this funding to provide equipment and engineering support for the installation of six permanent, continuously operating, GPS stations in Haiti (the first of which Calais installed himself).
Read more		 2010-03
POLENET 2009/10 Seven continuous GPS stations were installed in Antarctica during the 2009/10 field campaign. It was not possible to install all 14 CGPS because of inclement weather in West Antarctica. Thirteen stations installed during the previous two seasons were visited to upgrade them to the latest designs and configurations and in several cases to repair and upgrade the sites.
Read more		 2010-02
GGN North Liberty Station Upgrade - Phase 2 The North Liberty, Iowa (NLIB), Global GNSS Station is one of the longest running GPS stations (March, 1993) in the GGN network, as well as being a reference frame site. The antenna mount is a JPL ring mount, in which the choke ring sits (see Figure 2). One main issue in upgrading the station is that this mount prevents the use of a calibrated antenna/dome combination, which is now a requirement of the IGS. In order to replace the failing AOA choke ring, a new mount was designed, fabricated, tested, and installed.
Read more		 2009-11
Year 3: Afar, Ethiopia GPS campaign 2009 was the third year of UNAVCO support for the Afar Rift project, located in eastern Ethiopia. A 60 km long dyke opened up in the Dabbahu segment in 2005 that marked the beginning of a continuing rifting episode. New intrusions, with associated seismic activity, have occurred regularly every year thereafter, making the rift one of the most active in the world.
Read more		 2009-11
GGN North Liberty Station Upgrade - Phase 1 The North Liberty Global GNSS Station (NLIB) has been operating with the same AOA choke ring antenna since March 5, 1993. This is one of the longest running core reference frame stations. The antenna has begun to show signs of degradation and the JPLA dome was shattered sometime last year, both must be replaced.
Read more		 2009-09
Niwot Ridge GPS installation One continuously operating GPS station was installed up on Niwot ridge in early September. PI Kristine Larson will be using the data from the site to determine if GPS antennas (set in standard geodetic orientations) will be suitable for measuring changes in snow depth. These changes can be tracked in the corresponding multipath modulation of the GPS signal.
Read more		 2009-09
Goddard Geophysical Astronomical Observatory (GGAO) - Demonstration and Reconnaisance UNAVCO Facility and PBO personnel traveled to Goddard's Geophysical and Astronomical Observatory (GGAO) in September to do reconnaissance in preparation for the installation of two deep drill braced monuments. The current GNSS monument, GODE, will have to be abandoned once the new VLBI antenna is installed in 2010 as part of the first prototype 'NASA Supersite.'
Read more		 2009-09
ICESat Calibration UNAVCO personnel took part in a high-resolution GPS survey of the eastern lobe of the Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia, to provide ground truth for NASA's Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) laser altimeter. A prime objective of the ICESat mission is to acquire multi-year elevation data for Antarctica and Greenland in order to quantify changes in the ice sheets associated with climate change.
Read more		 2009-09
Red Lakes Peatland Network Expansion Three new continuously operating GPS stations were added to an existing network of 11 GPS stations in the Red Lake Peatlands of northern Minnesota. The three new sites are installed in a triangular formation, each approximately 20 meters apart. Nested within the GPS triangle are 31 radially arranged instrumented piezometers.
Read more		 2009-08
Toolik Thermokarst Alaska's North Slope area is a wide expanse of land that is located north of the Brooks Range and extends to the Arctic Ocean. The land is characterized by the surface “active layer” of tundra that thaws during the summer season, while the underlying permafrost remains frozen year-round.
Read more		 2009-07
Costa Rica Network Expansion and Upgrades The Nicoya Peninsula, located off the northwest coast of Costa Rica, is one of two places in the world where land sits directly above the seismogenic zone of a subduction boundary. This unique setting allows for the use of land based GPS and seismic stations in crustal deformation research. The data from these stations will help measure the strain accumulation of the fault and will be useful in determining the fault slip rate, its subsurface geometry, and its locking pattern.
Read more		 2009-07
New Experimental Monument Erected at NOAA Table Mountain Facility, Colorado Over the years UNAVCO has installed countless GPS antenna monuments into solid earth. These monuments were specifically designed to reside in the solid bed rock and thus limited the placement of these stations. With the rise in use of geodetic GPS for purposes other than plate tectonics came the necessity to place GPS monuments in less solid earth and engineers at UNAVCO came up with a new design.
Read more		 2009-07
GNET 2009 Nine continuous GPS stations were installed in Greenland during the August 2009 field campaign. Communications for two stations installed last year (2008) were repaired and brought back online. Data from these sites are transmitted via an Iridium modem to the Boulder Facility network, where it is archived automatically. Currently there are 43 stations in the GNET network.
Read more		 2009-07
New Permanent Station Installation on Mount Evans, Colorado Working with PIs from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) UNAVCO engineers installed a continuously operating GPS station at the Mt. Evans Observatory. The Observatory is operated by researchers from the University of Denver who are currently conducting weather experiments.
Read more		 2009-07
Barrow DGPS Training and Inventory, Alaska UNAVCO paid a visit to the Barrow Arctic Science Consortium (BASC) facility in June of 2009 to perform maintenance and review a detailed inventory of the GPS equipment on loan to BASC. This annual visit also provided an opportunity to train researchers from UTEP and San Diego State University in the use UNAVCO gear at the facility.
Read more		 2009-06
LARISSA 2009, Antarctica LARISSA: Larsen Ice Shelf System, Antarctica is a National Science Foundation funded initiative that brings an international, interdisciplinary team together to address a significant regional problem with global change implications, the abrupt environmental change in Antarctica's Larsen Ice Shelf System.
Read more		 2009-04
Munson Farms Surface Soil Moisture Study Two continuously operating GPS stations were recently installed at Munson Farms outside of Boulder, Colorado. The stations will operate for three years and are part of a larger, continental-scale study that aims to convert GPS signal-to-noise (SNR) data into estimates of surface soil moisture content.
Read more		 2009-03
GNSS Reference Station Communications Upgrade The GNSS reference frame station, CHPI, in Cachoeira Paulista, Brazil, is operated by the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE) in conjunction with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and UNAVCO.
Read more		 2009-02
Antarctic Program Support 2008-2009 During the 2008-09 Antarctic field season, the UNAVCO polar group supported 24 individual PI-based science campaign projects. Sixty two receivers were sent to the continent for campaign support, including fifteen NetRS receivers. An additional ten GPS receivers remain on the ice to support long term data collection at WAIS divide under Slawek Tulaczyc.
Read more		 2009-02
Polar Permanent Stations MRI Project: Year 3 Field Season In 2006 the National Science Foundation awarded Major Research Infrastructure (MRI) funding to UNAVCO and the IRIS/PASSCAL seismic consortium for a unique proposal to design and build a reliable power and communication system for autonomous polar station operation. This three-year development effort involves close collaboration with Antarctic seismologists and GPS scientists.
Read more		 2009-02
New Permanent Station Installations on Sierra Negra Volcano, Galapagos In January of 2009 UNAVCO Engineer Abe Morrison along with Principal Investigator (PI) Bill Chadwick from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, installed 2 additional Permanent GPS stations in an existing network inside of Volcano Sierra Negra. One of the new stations went inside the caldera and one on the rim.
Read more		 2009-01
POLENET 2008-2009 During 2008-09 field season one CGPS site was installed by plane from McMurdo and two sites were installed at or near the WAIS divide camp. Five sites installed last season were visited by plane and helicopter to perform O&M. Data from the 14 operational CGPS sites are transmitted via the Iridium satellite system to the UNAVCO Archive.
Read more		 2009-01
Data Archive Interface Version 2 (DAIv2) - Public Alpha Release The Data Archive Interface Version 2 (DAIv2) is the UNAVCO Facility's next generation interface for search and access of UNAVCO's GPS data holdings. The DAIv2 includes a powerful and flexible Web application (see figure 1) for discovery and visualization of UNAVCO's GPS data and metadata holdings. The DAIv2 also includes a suite of Java-based command-line clients for advanced users needing automated discovery and download.
Read more		 2008-11
Puerto Rico Seismic Network Installations (Part 2) UNAVCO Engineers Sarah Doelger and Ellie Boyce recently completed the last three of six new CGPS stations located on several islands in the Caribbean. All six stations will be incorporated into the Puerto Rico Seismic Network (PRSN) which is a division of the University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez.
Read more		 2008-10
Magnitude 6.9 Vanuatu Earthquake: Near one of UNAVCO's First Permanent Station Installations The USGS reported a magnitude 6.9 thrust fault earthquake occurring on Tuesday, September 9, 2008 at 5:52 am local time at a depth of 121.8 km. Moderate to strong shaking was reported from the Banks and Torres islands near the epicenter, and from Luganville on Espiritu Santo 225 km to the south, which is Vanuatu's largest island.
Read more		 2007-09
East Greenland Glacier Dynamics Outlet glaciers on the perimeter of the Greenland Ice Sheet continuously feed fresh water into the Atlantic Ocean at the zone where the cryosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere meet, a highly complex and insufficiently understood area.
Read more		 2008-08
Benin's Millennium Challenge Account The small West African nation of Benin is a poor country currently confronted with a struggling economy and widespread poverty. Economic development is hindered by land insecurity, lack of access to capital, an inefficient judicial system, and an uncompetitive sea port.
Read more		 2008-07
GNET 2008 Nine continuous GPS stations were installed in Greenland as part of POLENET Greenland (GNET) during the May and July 2008 field campaigns. Communications for two stations installed last year (2007) were repaired and brought back online.
Read more		 2008-07
CALIPSO Facility Support 2007-2010 The UNAVCO facility provided support for the CALIPSO Borehole Facility (Caribbean Andesitic Lava Island Precision Seismo-geodetic Observatory) located on Montserrat, WI. The CALIPSO project investigates the dynamics of the entire magmatic system of Soufriere Hills Volcano (SHV) to enhance our understanding of andesitic magma dynamics in general.
Read more		 2008-06
GGN-FALK Station Install NASA-JPL provides support for the GPS infrastructure through a network of permanent GPS stations called the Global GPS Network (GGN). The UNAVCO Facility supports the operation and maintenance of the permenent stations that make up the NASA-GGN.
Read more		 2008-06
Puerto Rico Seismic Network Installations In May of 2008 UNAVCO Engineers Abe Morrison and Sarah Doelger installed three of the six new CGPS stations to be placed around Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. These installations included a site at the Arecibo Observatory, the Bayamon Science Park, and one on Caja De Muertos Island.
Read more		 2008-05
Summit Camp Site Visit and Training With funding obtained from the NSF Office of Polar Progams, a permanent GPS base station was installed at Summit Camp in 2006 and is equipped with real-time kinematic (RTK) surveying capability. Summit Camp is a research station located at the highest point of the Greenland ice sheet, and supports a variety of multinational research, including atmospheric and snow chemistry studies, and deep ice core drilling operations.
Read more		 2008-05
Terrestrial Laser Scanning in Iceland: CAUSE The Center for Advanced Undergraduate Studies and Experience (CAUSE) at Pennsylvania State University is offering a 2-semester course examining the geology, geophysics, and geography of Iceland. UNAVCO's newly acquired Terrestrial Laser Scanner (TLS) was loaned to Professors Sridhar Anandakrishnan and Pete La Femina, and their 14 undergraduate students, for the field portion of the course, which took place over a 2-week interval in May.
Read more		 2008-05
Barrow DGPS Training and Inventory In early April of this year, UNAVCO visited the Barrow Arctic Science Consortium (BASC) in order to conduct the annual inventory of the GPS equipment on loan to BASC, and to train both BASC science support staff members and University of Alaska Fairbanks researchers.
Read more		 2008-04
GeoEarthScope Airborne LiDAR Imagery Acquisitions and Short Course Two GeoEarthScope airborne LiDAR imagery acquisition campaigns were successfully completed in April 2008: the Southern/Eastern California (SoCal) project and the Pacific Northwest (PNW) project. Field work began on March 31 and concluded on April 27. More than 1200 km2 were imaged for SoCal. Primary SoCal targets included the following fault systems: Garlock, Elsinore, San Cayetano, Calico, Blackwater, Helendale, Lenwood, Panamint, Ash Hill, Hunter Mountain, Tin Mountain and Owens Valley.
Read more		 2008-04
Polar Permanent Stations MRI Project: Year 2 Field Season In 2006 the National Science Foundation awarded Major Research Infrastructure (MRI) funding to UNAVCO and the IRIS/PASSCAL seismic consortium for a unique proposal to design and build a reliable power and communication system for autonomous polar station operation. This three-year development effort involves close collaboration with Antarctic seismologists and GPS scientists.
Read more		 2008-02
POLENET Support 2007-2008 Twelve continuous GPS and eight seismic stations were installed in Antarctica during 2007-08 field season. The POLENET Support project is part of the International Polar Year (IPY) POLENET consortium and includes active participation of collaborators from 28 nations including the US. The project's GPS goals are to measure the vertical and horizontal solid Earth deformation to improve and test the models of glacial isostatic adjustment/sea-level change and to improve the global geodetic reference frame.
Read more		 2008-02
Antarctic Program Support 2007-2008 During the 2007-08 Antarctic field season, the UNAVCO polar group supported 19 individual PI-based science campaign projects. Seventy receivers were sent to the continent for campaign support, including twenty NetRS receivers.
Read more		 2008-02
Magnitude 6.0 Earthquake hits Nevada On Thursday, February 21, 2008, at 06:16:02 AM local time, an earthquake occurred in north-central Nevada. The epicenter was 10 km ENE of Wells, Nevada, near interstate 80. The depth of the rupture was determined at 6.7 km. Numerous buildings in Wells suffered considerable damage.
Read more		 2008-02
Lasers in the Cold Desert UNAVCO's recently purchased Terrestrial Laser Scanner (TLS), will be used for a number of investigations in Antarctica. Currently, scientist Bruce Marsh, the Principal Investigator of Johns Hopkins University, and Bjorn Johns, a UNAVCO Project Manager, are scanning a beautifully exposed magmatic mush column (MMC) in the Dry Valleys of Southern Victoria Land.
Read more		 2008-01
Marshall Testing Facility Operational - Marshall, Colorado The UNAVCO Facility has completed construction of a testing facility located at Marshall, just outside Boulder, Colorado. The testing facility is funded by NASA-GGN through the UNAVCO cooperative agreement. NASA's Global GPS Network (GGN) faces many challenges in the near future primarily due to maintenance of aging equipment.
Read more		 2008-01
Improving Hurricane Intensity Forecasts Using Caribbean GPS Stations The COSMIC program has recently been funded by the National Science Foundation to expand Suominet into the Caribbean. The objective of this expansion is to improve the forecasts of hurricane track and intensity using continuous observations of integrated water vapor.
Read more		 2007-12
Niwot Ridge LTER The Niwot Ridge Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) area, located approximately 35km west of Boulder, is one of 26 field sites devoted to ecosystem studies in the larger LTER Network. Numerous studies in the area are currently underway, and in September UNAVCO provided researchers at the University of Colorado-Boulder one GPS unit with which to conduct hydrological surveys of the area's wells.
Read more		 2007-09
MWD CGPS Installation 2007 The Metropolitan Water District (MWD) of Southern California is a consortium of 26 cities and water districts that provide drinking water to nearly 18 million people in parts of Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties.
Read more		 2007-09
Juneau Icefield Research Program Since its inception in 1946, the Juneau Icefield Research Program (JIRP) has offered undergraduate and graduate students a unique research opportunity on the large system of temperate glaciers located north of Juneau, Alaska.
Read more		 2007-08
Peatlands Minnesota Ten years ago, University of Minnesota's Paul Glaser headed up a pilot study of peatland methane release using three CGPS stations. The study showed that methane was released in events occurring over several hours which deformed the bog surface by tens of centimeters.
Read more		 2007-08
GNET 2007 Twenty-three continuous GPS stations were installed in Greenland during August 2007. The GNET project is part of the International Polar Year (IPY) POLENET consortium and includes active participation of collaborators from Denmark, Luxemburg, and the USA for Greenland activities.
Read more		 2007-07
Green Valley Biocomplexity Study Area UNAVCO provided field engineering support for a third consecutive year to gather GPS data at the Biocomplexity study sites maintained near Thule, Greenland by Ron Sletten (University of Washington) and Jeffrey Welker (University of Alaska, Anchorage).
Read more		 2007-07
McCall Glacier RTK Survey 2007 Mass balance measurements, surface velocities, cross-section profiles and continuous topography of McCall Glacier were made using real-time kinematic (RTK) surveys. The mass balance profiles were first measured in the 1990s with an airborne laser survey.
Read more		 2007-06
Sierra Field Course For the second year in a row, UNAVCO provided Indiana University's “Volcanoes of the Eastern Sierra Nevada: Geology and Natural Heritage of the Long Valley Caldera” field course with a Trimble RTK system to introduce the students to scientific field measurements.
Read more		 2007-05
Improving Hurricane Intensity Forecasts Using Caribbean GPS Stations The COSMIC program has recently been funded by the National Science Foundation to expand Suominet into the Caribbean. The objective of this expansion is to improve the forecasts of hurricane track and intensity using continuous observations of integrated water vapor.
Read more		 2007-05
Barrow Arctic Science Consortium DGPS System Upgrade and Training The Barrow Arctic Science Consortium (BASC) is dedicated to supporting research and educational activities pertaining to Alaska's North Slope, and adjacent portions arctic environments. In April, UNAVCO paid its yearly visit to the station in order to address equipment issues and train members of the BASC support staff, who will in turn instruct visiting scientists on how to use the GPS equipment.
Read more		 2007-04
Geodetic Monitoring of the 2005 Da'Ure rifting event, Afar A major seismo-magmatic event in the Afar region of Ethiopia in October of 2005 prompted installation of 10 continuous GPS stations around the rift in January of 2006 by scientists from Purdue University, Lamont-Doherty Observatory, and University of Rochester in the U.S., in collaboration with the Geophysical Observatory of the Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia and the University of Leeds in the U.K.
Read more		 2007-03
Bangladesh GPS Network Installation Participants from Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Dhaka University, and the UNAVCO Facility installed 12 continuous GPS stations across eastern Bangladesh in February, 2007. The project, aimed at understanding the deformation associated with the Burma Arc subduction system, includes deployment of the GPS systems for 4 years and a rotating network of seismometers.
Read more		 2007-02
Antarctic Program Support 2006-2007 During the 2006-07 Antarctica season, the UNAVCO polar group supported 27 individual PI-based science project campaigns. Sixty one receivers were sent to the continent for campaign support. Five receivers remain on the ice to support long term data collection.
Read more		 2007-02
Polar Permanent Stations MRI Project: Year 1 Field Season The National Science Foundation recently awarded Major Research Infrastructure (MRI) funding to UNAVCO and the IRIS/PASSCAL seismic consortium for a unique proposal to design and build a reliable power and communication system for autonomous polar station operation.
Read more		 2007-02
Pietown Maintenance The Pie Town, New Mexico, (PIE1) GNSS station had been exhibiting tracking problems for the past year or so, with periods of acceptable performance interrupted by poor tracking. Several issues made the performance problems difficult to diagnose.
Read more		 2007-01
Harvest Oil Platform The two GPS stations (HARV and HAR2), on the Harvest Oil platform (Figure 2), which sits roughly 15 km off the coast of central California, were brought online December 15, 2006, after an extended communications outage.
Read more		 2006-12
Calabria Long-term Campaign Installation Participants from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Dalhousie University, Universita della Calabria, and the UNAVCO Facility installed nine continuous GPS sites on a transect across Calabria, Italy, in November 2006. Calabria, in the boot of Italy, lies over an active Benioff zone in a complex subduction system.
Read more		 2006-11
BARGEN Expansion 2006 Three new GPS sites were added to the existing Basin and Range Geodetic Network (BARGEN) in north-central Nevada as a response to recent findings in data indicating the existence of coherent sub-continental scale transient deformation signals.
Read more		 2006-11
UNAVCO Facility Supports the AFREF Technical Workshop The UNAVCO Facility, in support of NASA GGN and IGS activities, participated in the AFREF Technical workshop at the University of Cape Town in South Africa on July 9-13, which was attended by approximately 40 delegates from national surveying and mapping agencies around Africa.
Read more		 2006-09
Kilauea Volcano Site Upgrades, Hawaii 11 sites in the Stanford-HVO Kilauea GPS network were upgraded from Trimble 4000 receivers and Trimble groundplane antennas to Trimble NetRS receivers and Trimble Zephyr Geodetic antennas. Communications for each site were also upgraded.
Read more		 2006-08
Sierra Negra Volcano Monitoring Systems Upgrade, Galapagos, Ecuador Two new continuous dual-frequency GPS sites and a repeater were installed on Sierra Negra volcano, on the island of Isabela, Galapagos, Ecuador. These stations augment a continuous, telemetered network installed in 2002 (2002 Network Installation) of two dual-frequency sites and four single-frequency GPS sites.
Read more		 2006-07
Rio Grande Rift Network Installation The Rio Grande Rift project continues to be the main focus of the PBO EarthScope Campaign support group, with four more monuments installed in early December. The network will consist of 25 semi-permanent GPS stations in Colorado and New Mexico, 21 of which have now been completed.
Read more		 2006-07
ICYLANDS Measurement Campaigns in Thule, Greenland The ICYLANDS project, at the University of Washington, is aimed at quantifying the coupling of the carbon and water cycles and the interacting physical, chemical, and biological (PCB) processes that control carbon exchange between cold, dry terrestrial ecosystems and the atmosphere.
Read more		 2006-07
McCall Glacier RTK Survey 2006 Mass balance measurements, surface velocities, cross-section profiles and continuous topography of McCall Glacier were made using real-time kinematic (RTK) surveys. The mass balance profiles were first measured in the 1990s with an airborne laser survey.
Read more		 2006-06
Barrow Arctic Science Consortium DGPS System Upgrade and Training UNAVCO coordinated an annual site visit to the Barrow Arctic Science Consortium (BASC) facility with the arrival of the research team from University of Texas, El Paso (UTEP), to both upgrade parts of the GPS system and train the UTEP team on the system.
Read more		 2006-06
Santorini, Greece Permanent Stations In collaboration with Stathis C. Stiros from Patras University and The Institute for the Study and Monitoring of the Santorini Volcano (I.S.M.O.SA.V.) three permanent GPS stations were installed along the Santorini Caldera on the islands of Thira and Thirasia.
Read more		 2006-05
Nicoya Peninsula CGPS, Costa Rica The Nicoya Peninsula of Costa Rica offers a unique opportunity with the use of GPS technology to advance the understanding of subduction zone dynamics as it is situated above an active seismogenic zone. Most such zones are typically located offshore.
Read more		 2006-04
Richmond Real-Time Station Installation The new NASA-JPL high-rate real-time station RCM7 was installed at the CSTARS (Center for Southeastern Tropical Advanced Remote Sensing) facility, which is part of the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, located on the University of Miami Richmond campus in Southern Miami-Dade, Florida.
Read more		 2006-04
Yucca Mountain Expansion Project The second round of installations was completed for the Yucca Mountain Expansion project for the California Institute of Technology and Harvard-Smithsonian. The project, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, is part of the Yucca Mountain feasibility study.
Read more		 2006-04
Summit Camp Permanent RTK Station Installation, Greenland A permanent GPS base station was installed at Summit Camp with real-time kinematic (RTK) surveying capability. Summit Camp is a research station located at the highest point of the Greenland ice sheet, and supports a variety of multinational research, including atmospheric and snow chemistry studies, and deep ice core drilling operations.
Read more		 2006-04
Socorro Survey Training A 17-person, 2.5-day course was taught by UNAVCO at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology (New Mexico Tech) in Feb-March 2006. The class was a hands-on introduction to scientific surveying using UNAVCO GPS equipment, specifically, Topcon GB-1000 receivers.
Read more		 2006-02
Joshua Tree Survey UNAVCO provided 12 GPS systems for a campaign in Joshua Tree National Park. A total of 13 monuments were surveyed, 12 within the park and one outside the park. The network was established in 2005 to better understand the details of the crustal strain rate field between the southernmost San Andreas fault zone (SAFZ) and the eastern California shear zone (ECSZ). Additional campaigns are planned for May and September this year.
Read more		 2006-02
Record Antarctic Season 2005-2006 A record Antarctic season was just completed, with 80 geodetic GPS receivers provided in support of 25 individual PI-based science project campaigns, with six left for long term data collection.
Read more		 2006-02
Nicoya Peninsula Recon, Costa Rica An initial deployment of a prototype network of at least four permanent GPS stations is to occur between mid-April through mid-May. In preparation, two reconnaissance trips were made. The first took place in June 2005 during which time the local collaborator was met and several potential site locations were visited.
Read more		 2006-01
Socorro Magma Uplift Two permanent GPS sites were installed by contingents from UNAVCO, Georgia Tech, New Mexico Tech, and the New Mexico Bureau of Mines and Geology in November 2005 north of Socorro, New Mexico.
Read more		 2005-11
Cayuga/IAGT SuomiNet GPS Station A deep drilled braced monument has been installed in Auburn, New York for the Institute for the Application of Geospatial Technology (IAGT); in association with Cayuga Community College. Cayuga/IAGT is a participant in the SuomiNet GPS project.
Read more		 2005-10
RETREAT, Northern Italy Eight semi-continuous GPS sites were established in northern Italy in June 2005 as part of the ongoing RETREAT (Retreating-trench, Extension and Accretion Tectonics) project. Each site was equipped with a Trimble NetRS receiver and a Trimble Zephyr Geodetic antenna.
Read more		 2005-09
Yucca Mountain Expansion Project The first round of installations was completed for the Yucca Mountain Expansion project for the California Institute of Technology and Harvard-Smithsonian. The project, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, is part of the Yucca Mountain feasibility study.
Read more		 2005-09
GULFNET Rapid Deployment The UNAVCO Facility responded to a rapid response request by PIs Giovanni Sella and Roy Dokka to re-establish the Grand Isle, LA continuous GULFNET station which was damaged by Hurricane Katrina. GULFNET is a multiagency supported continuous GPS network that is used for scientific research and navigation.
Read more		 2005-09
Baltoro Glacier Surface Velocity Survey, Pakistan UNAVCO GPS receivers were used to repeatedly determine the location of a network of stakes both across and along the Baltoro Glacier, Pakistan. Measurements were made from the glacier terminus to K2 base camp over a horizontal distance of ~40 km.
Read more		 2005-09
Antarctic Survey Training A three-day training course was held at UNAVCO for members of three science groups who will be using precision GPS equipment in the upcoming Antarctic field season. This course covered the basics of GPS technology, Trimble 5700/R7 receiver systems, survey techniques, and data processing and quality checking using Trimble Geomatics Office software.
Read more		 2005-08
Extreme Environment Testing of Trimble NetRS Receivers The UNAVCO Facility has begun testing all Trimble NetRS receivers in the newly acquired temperature chamber to ensure that all components meet the manufacturer environmental specifications. Currently, eight receivers can be tested at one time.
Read more		 2005-08
Airborne Laser Swath Mapping (ALSM) Survey of the southern San Andreas and San Jacinto faults An ultra high resolution topographic dataset covering major fault systems in Southern California was produced using Airborne Laser Swath Mapping (ALSM), airborne photogrametry and GPS. The survey area included nearly 1000 km of the San Andreas and San Jacinto faults, from Parkfield in the north to the Salton Sea in the south.
Read more		 2005-08
Summit Camp Survey, Greenland Several surveying tasks were completed at Summit Camp, a research station at the highest point of the Greenland ice sheet. The camp layout and infrastructure had changed significantly since the last UNAVCO survey in 2003, so the camp was re-surveyed and the camp plan drawing was updated to reflect the current layout.
Read more		 2005-08
GGN Pietown GPS System Maintenance A site maintenance visit was recently conducted at the PieTown, NM (PIE1) IGS station. The station is co-located with the PieTown VLBA station. After an earlier antenna replacement this summer an anomalous error was noticed, manifesting itself as a large position offset.
Read more		 2005-07
Cascadia Episodic Tremor and Slip Event The campaign GPS deployment to monitor the upcoming Cascadia Episodic Tremor and Slip event is underway, with the first 3 of an expected 30 stations installed on 2 August in the western Olympic Peninsula.
Read more		 2005-07
RETREAT, Northern Italy Eight semi-continuous GPS sites were established in northern Italy in June 2005 as part of the ongoing RETREAT (Retreating-trench, Extension and Accretion Tectonics) project. Each site was equipped with a Trimble NetRS receiver and a Trimble Zephyr Geodetic antenna.
Read more		 2005-07
High Arctic Field Course UNAVCO provided one field engineer to help instruct and field assist a three-week High Arctic Field Course lead by Ron Sletten (University of Washington) and Jeffrey Welker (University of Alaska, Anchorage). The course included twelve students from a variety of universities and of both biology and geology backgrounds, and at different stages of their academic careers.
Read more		 2005-07
GPS Measurement Corrections for Geophysicists: A Calibration Procedure for Pseudorange Data A Thermotron environmental test chamber was recently purchased providing the capability to test system components in a controlled environment at extreme temperatures (-70 deg C - 70 deg C).
Read more		 2006-06
Antenna Acceleration Calibration As the accuracy of GPS estimates of site position continues to improve the detection of smaller geophysical signals becomes possible. The capability of GPS for detecting short-term transient motions such as the minute motions caused by surface waves of seismic origin will be assessed.
Read more		 2005-05
Barrow Arctic Science Consortium DGPS System Upgrade and Training UNAVCO coordinated an annual site visit to the Barrow Arctic Science Consortium (BASC) facility with the arrival of the research team from University of Texas, El Paso, (UTEP) to both upgrade the DGPS base receiver and train the UTEP team on the system.
Read more		 2005-05
Survey training in Fairbanks, Alaska An 8-person, three-day course was taught by UNAVCO at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, in April 2005. The class was a hands-on introduction to scientific surveying using UNAVCO GPS equipment, specifically, Trimble 5700/R7s. Static, fast static, post-processing kinematic, and real-time kinematic techniques were covered.
Read more		 2005-04
Toolik Field Station DGPS system upgrade A Trimble NetRS receiver was installed as a real-time kinematic base at Toolik Field Station (TFS), on the north side of Alaska's Brooks Range. The NetRS replaced a Trimble 5700 installed in 2004, when the RTK system was established.
Read more		 2005-04
NASA/GGN Station Upgrade, Cordoba, Argentina The NASA/GGN Cordoba (CORD) GPS station is located at the Comision Nacional De Actividades Espaciales (CONAE) facility between Alta Gracia and Cordoba, in Argentina. The CONAE facility was originally used by the Argentinean military for missile development and testing.
Read more		 2005-03
Mauna Loa Continuous GPS Network Install The University of Hawaii, the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory and the UNAVCO Facility installed eleven new continuous GPS sites on Mauna Loa volcano, Hawaii, in March 2005.
Read more		 2005-03
Tundralab Receiver and Power Install A testbed receiver and power system was recently installed on Niwot Ridge near the Continental Divide. The Niwot Ridge tundralab is located at 11,600 feet on the Continental Divide at the University of Colorado Mountain Research Station Facility.
Read more		 2005-01
RETREAT, Italy and Croatia RETREAT (Retreating-trench, Extension, and Accretion Tectonics) is a multidisciplinary project to develop a self-consistent dynamic model of syn-convergent extension, using the northern Apennines, northern Italy, as a natural laboratory.
Read more		 2004-10
Antarctic Program Support 2004-2005 A record 80 geodetic GPS receivers were deployed by UNAVCO Polar Services to Antarctica in support of 25 individual PI-based projects in the United States Antarctic Program.
Read more		 2004-10
BARGEN Network Maintenance Maintenance was performed at two GPS sites in the Basin and Range Geodetic Network (BARGEN) in northwestern Nevada. A telemetry relay antenna at the summit of Mt. Lewis was repaired.
Read more		 2004-05
Toolik Field Station DGPS system A survey grade real-time differential GPS system was installed for dedicated use at Toolik Field Station (TFS) on the north side of Alaska's Brooks Range. The Trimble 5700 receiver system meets the emerging demand for centimeter-level surveys, and is capable of both real-time and post processed surveys.
Read more		 2004-05
Surveying with UNAVCO GPS Equipment During the first week of April, fifteen scientists came to UNAVCO to participate in the inaugural Surveying with UNAVCO equipment. The purpose of this course was to train the diverse community of scientists in the steps required to perform a survey with GPS.
Read more		 2004-04
Harvest Oil Platform, California A communications link upgrade was the goal on the latest visit to the Harvest Oil Platform off the coast of Santa Maria, California. Prior to the installation of the HUGHES VSAT satellite system, a cell phone link had been the reliable method for data retrieval from the platform.
Read more		 2004-03
Campaign Receiver Testing for Plate Boundary Observatory The UNAVCO Facility routinely performs equipment tests in support of community activities. Recently, the Facility has been testing GPS receivers for procurement by the Plate Boundary Observatory project, including receivers for permanent stations, and receivers intended for Campaign use.
Read more		 2004-03
Saudi Arabia In March of 2002, two new permanent GPS stations were deployed in Saudi Arabia. They were remotely located, DC powered sites with cellular modems installed for wireless communications, and data transfers.
Read more		 2004-03
Easter Island Permanent IGS Station Installation (ISPA) and Existing Site (EISL) Maintenance Station Isla de Pascua (ISPA) was established at Latitude: S 27.12498 and Longitude: W 109.34441. This new Easter Island station was installed to replace the existing station EISL, which has lost sky view due to the proliferation of Eucalyptus trees, and also to utilize the new IRIS VSAT Internet link.
Read more		 2004-02
West Antarctica TIDES Project Ice from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet flows to the sea through a series of ice streams; the factors controlling the flow of the ice streams are not well understood. Recent observations give a brief glimpse of the surprisingly sensitive reaction of the ice streams to tidal oscillations.
Read more		 2004-01
RETREAT, Italy RETREAT (Retreating-trench, Extension, and Accretion Tectonics) is a multidisciplinary project to develop a self-consistent dynamic model of syn-convergent extension, using the northern Apennines, northern Italy, as a natural laboratory. This is a collaborative effort among Yale, University of Washington, Lehigh, Purdue, USC, SAO, and Italian colleagues.
Read more		 2003-10
Yellowstone Norris Geyser Basin Response A temporary, five-station GPS network was installed in Yellowstone National Park in response to increased heat and steam emissions in parts of Norris Geyser Basin. The network was installed by a UNAVCO engineer, University of Utah students and faculty, and National Park Service scientists as part of a monitoring effort by Yellowstone Volcano Observatory (YVO).
Read more		 2003-08
McCall Glacier McCall Glacier in the northern Brooks Range is used as an index for glacier contributions of fresh water inputs into the Arctic Ocean. The primary efforts are directed towards mass balance and flow dynamics. Bjorn Johns supported the most intensive initial season of the project to establish a local network and re-survey previous mass-balance locations.
Read more		 2003-05
Vertical Ground Motion Monitoring, Las Vegas The GPS Station UNR2 is located in Mesquite Nevada, approximately 60 miles North East of Las Vegas. The purpose of the permanent GPS station is to measure the vertical ground motion as water is extracted from the water table below. The GPS equipment is contained in a water pumping station which has been recently installed and is maintained by the Virgin Valley Water District.
Read more		 2003-05
Bench Glacier Campaign Four Trimble 5700 GPS receivers were deployed on Bench Glacier (Chugach Range, Alaska) near Valdez, with a fifth receiver serving as the reference base station on bedrock. Shad O'Neel provided field support to deploy the receivers. The project measures precise uplift and surface strains associated with the passage of a seasonal wave measured last year by Robert Anderson.
Read more		 2003-05
Global GPS Network Equipment Upgrade, Cachoeira Paulista, SP, Brazil The Permanent IGS Station in Cachoeira, Paulista, SP, Brazil, (CHPI) is operated by The National Institute for Space Research (INPE), the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) / NASA and UNAVCO. A site maintenance visit was carried out in May of 2003, upgrading the GPS equipment to a new Ashtech Z-Reference station receiver and chokering antenna. A meterological package measuring temperature, pressure, and humidity was also installed.
Read more		 2003-05
Mississippi Delta One of this projects' goal is to reconstruct the history of sea level in the Mississippi Delta for the last 2000 years through the collection and dating of peat samples. The GPS component of this project is to measure the elevations of the peat sample locations with cm accuracy and to quantify the vertical errors involved. UNAVCO provided four GPS systems, field support, and data processing support.
Read more		 2003-05
Taal Volcano GPS Network Maintenance The Taal Volcano L1 GPS network was installed in July, 1999 with yearly maintenance trips since then to improve and expand telemetry and observation points. The network currently consists of 12 remote continuous L1 stations in addition to 3 continuous dual frequency stations.
Read more		 2003-03
Taku Glacier, Southeast Alaska Taku Glacier is located in SE Alaska near Juneau. It is currently advancing into proglacial sediments and deforming them into bulges. This advance is studied using a variety of techniques. GPR and radar echo sounding will be used to measure ice thickness.
Read more		 2003-03
Salmon Falls Creek Landslide Monitoring Project, Twin Falls, Idaho A landslide is pinching off the Salmon Falls Creek and as a result a natural dam is forming. The potential instability of the dam is cause for concern as there are several communities located downstream of the landslide. Idaho State University requested UNAVCO support for the deployment of GPS instrumentation in order to monitor the progress of the slowly creeping slide.
Read more		 2003-02
BARGEN Network Densification The Basin and Range Geodedic Network (BARGEN) is a collaborative project between the California Institute of Technology Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. This project included the installation of three additional sites to the existing 50 site BARGEN network.
Read more		 2003-01
Seychelles GPS Equipment Upgrade The station SEY1 is located on the island of Mahe in the republic of Seychelles. The GPS station is collocated with a seismic station run by the University of California, San Diego. The purpose of the visit to the station, in January of 2003, was to update and exchange of the existing computer and GPS systems.
Read more		 2003-01
Easter Island (EISL) Permanent IGS Station Upgrade and Reconnaissance The Permanent IGS Station on Easter Island (EISL) is operated by the Center for Space Studies at the University of Chile, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)/NASA and UNAVCO. The station is located at the old Easter Island Laser Station installed by the NASA Space Geodesy Program in 1992.
Read more		 2003-01
Joint IRIS/PASSCAL/UNAVCO Site Work Phase 1 included installation of a deeply anchored GPS monument at the IRIS/PASSCAL Facility (PAS1), installation of an Ashtech MicroZ GPS receiver with data being downloaded to a computer over a wireless FreeWave radio link. The computer is running RedHat Linux 7.1 and using EGADS and SHARC to configure and download the GPS receiver. LDM (Local Data Manager) was used to transfer the data back to the UNAVCO Facility for processing and archiving.
Read more		 2002
Joint IRIS/PASSCAL/UNAVCO Seismic & GPS Installations, Testing, and Development Phase 2 included the installation of a serial to Ethernet device which was put in place of the FreeWave radio link. The download software (SHARC) needed to be modified in order to accomodate a longer time-out period, thus allowing for the entire data file to be transferred to the download computer before timing out.
Read more		 2002
Joint IRIS/PASSCAL/UNAVCO Seismic & GPS Installations, Testing, and Development Phase 3 included the installation of a Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) system for communications, along with integration of a Nanometrics Trillium Broadband seismometer and a 24 bit Trident Digitiser. A seismic vault was excavated in order to house the new instruments. The same Ashtech MicroZ receiver was used for GPS data collection.
Read more		 2002
Friday Harbor SuomiNet Installation The UNAVCO Facility support to the SuomiNet project includes system development, integration, deployment, and technical support for the 75 station continuous GPS network. This effort was supported with NSF-Atmospheric Sciences Division (ATM) funding, and is benefiting both the atmospheric and geodetic research communities. The design and development included developing specific GPS technical capabilities to meet the unique real-time data streaming needs of the system.
Read more		 2002-11
Denali Earthquake Emergency Response The UNAVCO Facility has completed an initial emergency response to the November 3 magnitude 7.9 earthquake on the Denali Fault in the Alaska Range. Four campaign receivers from the UNAVCO pool were deployed by University of Alaska, Fairbanks (Jeff Freymueller, PI) staff two days after the quake. A UNAVCO field team also installed 10 semi-permanent continuous stations during the first two weeks after the earthquake.
Read more		 2002-11
Saudi Arabia In addition to providing network support to existing stations in Turkey, Egypt, Morocco, Ukraine, and Armenia, UNAVCO field engineers installed new stations in Sauid Arabia, Lebanon, Syria, and Morocco. GGN stations receive back-up downloading and the data from the remainder of the stations are managed by UNAVCO and are archived at the Facility. Data from selected stations are pushed to NASA Goddard CDDIS.
Read more		 2002-10
Akutan Alaska The purpose of this project was to install 4 monitoring stations with GPS, seismic, and borehole strainmeter equipment. The installation occurred in several phases. The UNAVCO engineer's role was to provide training on the fabrication and installation of the short-braced monument as well as general support. Ben Pauk was the engineer's primary contact and trainee. The data from the new sites will be telemetered to an FAA satellite uplink in Dutch Harbor and make its way to Anchorage. Currently there are only three stations installed collecting GPS data.
Read more		 2002-08
Isla Guadalupe SCIGN, UNAVCO and CICESE have collaborated to install a permanent GPS station and VSAT satellite communications system on Isla Guadalupe. VSAT is the only viable alternative for real time data communications with the island which lies too far from the mainland of the Baja Peninsula to allow regular radio telecommunications methods.
Read more		 2002-04
Sierra Negra L1/L2 GPS Network Jointly funded by the National Science Foundation - EAR and NASA - SENH, this project is a collaboration between the University of Idaho, Darwin Research Station, Galapagos National Park, and UNAVCO. The project is unique for several reasons. First of all, data from two different receiver types are being streamed via 900 MHz spread spectrum transceivers using the TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) protocol.
Read more		 2002-03
 

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