2019 UNAVCO Highlights

On November 30, 2018 a magnitude 7 earthquake struck just north of Anchorage, Alaska and caused over $75 million in damage to private and public facilities. The earthquake took place in the upper part of a subducting slab where the slab may be bending downwards, and early indications suggest that the event was related to stresses caused by this plate bending.

The rich and varied landscapes and geology of Trinidad and Tobago, a twin-island nation in the southeast Caribbean, reflect a complex, multi-phase tectonic history.

The GeoSCIFramework project enables geohazards research and ways to improve earthquake, tsunami and volcano early warning systems through real-time analysis using machine learning. The innovative approach provides real-time streaming analytics on continuous data streams from thousands of high-rate geophysical sensors throughout much of North America.

GPS/GNSS station P438 is located on Northwest Island, a small uninhabited island adjacent to Fidalgo Island in the Puget Sound. The site is in a prime location to capture episodic tremor and slip data and monitor ongoing plate deformation in the Cascadia subduction zone. Yet site access is tricky: P438 is only accessible via boat or helicopter.

Visit our booth, take a short course, and keep up with UNAVCO work through our staff presentations. At our booth, learn more about our instrumentation, data, and educational resources, and pick up some materials for your lab or great geodesy stickers for your favorite water bottle!

2019 Geo-Launchpad interns present their summer projects at the 2019 Geological Society of America's annual meeting in Phoenix, AZ.

A magnitude 4.5 earthquake occurred at 05:33:42 UTC on October 15, 2019, 1km SSE of Pleasant Hill, California. For more information, see the USGS Earthquake Hazards Program event page. The event occured within the Network of the Americas (NOTA) footprint. NOTA is a core component of the NSF Geodetic Facility for the Advancement of Geoscience (GAGE), operated by UNAVCO.

Our understanding of fundamental Earth processes requires multifaceted investigations that span a large range of temporal and spatial scales. This workshop will focus on cutting edge geophysical results of processes in the solid earth, cryosphere, oceans and atmosphere and will highlight synergies between the SAGE and GAGE communities.

Signals from this event were recorded by 12 GPS/GNSS stations within 71 km of the epicenter operated by UNAVCO that were streaming high rate (1-sps / 1 Hz) data in real time (Figure 2). These data allowed peak ground displacements (PGD) to be calculated automatically from the displacement traces within seconds of the earthquake (Figures 3 and 4).

UNAVCO is downloading high-rate 1-sps (1 Hz) data from the few NOTA GPS/GNSS stations near the epicenter of this event. In addition, 5-sps (5 Hz) data are being downloaded from available sites. Due to the remote locations and limited comms of these sites, data will take longer than usual to be acquired. A station map is shown in Figure 2; this map will be updated after data are acquired. When downloaded, these data are available from the UNAVCO high rate data ftp site.

How do you install a GPS station in a marsh? How about three all in the same place? Installation of the Myrtle Grove subsidence superstation began in August 2016, but planning began well beforehand. The array of three co-located stations in Myrtle Grove, Louisiana, posed particular challenges, as the instruments were installed in a coastal marsh—in which the installation team would sink up to their hips in mud and water.

Scientists, community members, National Science Foundation (NSF) staff and representatives of federal agencies gathered in Washington, D.C. May 21-22 to celebrate the successes of EarthScope. EarthScope was an NSF program designed to study the structure and evolution of the North American continent and the processes that cause earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

The Community Network for Volcanic Eruption Response (CONVERSE) research coordination network (RCN) brings together a broadly interdisciplinary group of scientists from academia and US federal agencies who reflect the wide range of data, samples, instrumentation and modeling that currently characterizes volcano science.

UNAVCO has produced a fully processed 1-sps borehole strainmeter (BSM) dataset spanning the time period of this event. This dataset can be downloaded from the UNAVCO borehole strainmeter event response page.

The newly designated Network of the Americas (NOTA) incorporates three major networks: the EarthScope Plate Boundary Observatory (PBO), 1,100 stations spanning Alaska, the continental US, and Puerto Rico; TLALOCNet, 40 stations in Mexico; and COCONet, 85 stations spanning the Caribbean.

Continuing previous work in Bangladesh, Michael Steckler (LDEO) and Keith Williams (UNAVCO) arrived back in Myanmar in late October of 2018 to begin the installation of five additional cGPS sites with collaborators. The larger project entails installation of a transect of cGPS stations and seismometers spanning Bangladesh, India, and Myanmar.

Come find us at the 2019 annual meeting of the Seismological Society of America in Seattle in the exhibitor area to learn about high-rate and real-time geodetic data, student opportunities, and more. Our booth is staffed by UNAVCO personnel from all groups within the organization.