2020 UNAVCO Highlights

UNAVCO, as a university-governed consortium, elected new members to the Board of Directors and Nominating Committee.

A magnitude 7.0 earthquake occurred at 2020-10-30 11:51:27 (UTC) on October 30, 2020, off the coast of Greece and Turkey. For more information, see the USGS Earthquake Hazards Program event page

On 22 October, 2020, team members from UNAVCO and IRIS worked together to upgrade the power system and enclosure at UNAVCO station AC20 near Girdwood, AK.

A magnitude 4.9 earthquake occurred at 00:31:27 UTC (16:31:27 local) on October 1, 2020, 4 km North East of Westmorland, California as part of an earthquake swarm from September 30, 2020 to October 3, 2020. For more information, see the USGS Earthquake Hazards Program event page.

This short panel discussion includes caregivers from academic administration, the National Science Foundation (NSF), UNAVCO, and IRIS sharing their personal experiences and practical resources for managing work and caregiving.

A magnitude 7.6 earthquake occurred at 20:54:39 UTC (12:54:39 AKDT) on October 19, 2020, 91 km SE of Sand Point, Alaska. For more information, see the USGS Earthquake Hazards Program event page or the Alaska Earthquake Center event page.

The Data Access Interface-2 (DAI2) has been the primary method of searching and accessing GNSS data in the UNAVCO archive since 2007. It is a tool that was built in the Adobe Flash environment. Adobe announced in 2017 that Flash will reach end-of-life on December 31, 2020. UNAVCO will transition to a new interface based on GeoServer, Javascript and HTML5 technologies by this end-of-life date. UNAVCO will also provide guidance on the new data access portal through online short courses, Jupyter Notebooks, and online instructions as the new tool becomes available.

Dr. Charles (Chuck) Meertens retired from UNAVCO after 35 years of service to the geodetic community. Chuck was a founding employee of the UNAVCO Facility in 1984.

UNAVCO and The Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS), both university consortia, are interested in identifying member institutions that may be willing to host one or more functions of a future (post-2023) merged UNAVCO-IRIS organization.

A magnitude 7.8 earthquake occurred at 06:12:44 UTC (22:12:42 local) on July 22, 2020, 105 km SSE of Perryville, Alaska. The event occured within the Network of the Americas (NOTA) footprint.

A magnitude 5.8 earthquake occurred at 17:40:49 UTC (10:40:49 local) on June 24, 2020, 18 km SSE of Lone Pine, California. The event occured within the Network of the Americas (NOTA) footprint.

A magnitude 7.4 earthquake occurred at 15:29:05 UTC (10:29:05 local) on June 23, 2020, 12 km SSW of Santa María Zapotitlán, Mexico. The event occured within the Network of the Americas (NOTA) footprint.

In light of the recent events that dramatically illuminate the inequities of our country, the staff of UNAVCO reaffirm our values and share actions we are planning to address inclusion. This means taking a hard look at our current organization and culture.

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic and ‘safer-at-home’ directives, we successfully launched UNAVCO’s three internships (RESESS, Geo-Launchpad, and USIP) to a remote platform with 11 weeks of virtual programming.

UNAVCO has downloaded high-rate GPS/GNSS data, borehole strainmeter data, and borehole seismic data from the NSF Network of the Americas (NOTA) for the May 15, 2020 M 6.5 Monte Cristo Range earthquake.

Researchers at Montana State University's Subzero Research Laboratory (SRL) are exploring the potential for terrestrial laser scanners (TLS) to detect avalanche risk in real-time.

Due to the COVID-19 situation, the Board of Directors for UNAVCO and IRIS have agreed to postpone the in-person GAGE/SAGE Science Workshop until August 2021 (exact dates will be confirmed soon). This decision was not reached lightly but came after much deliberation.

Increasing coastal flooding has occurred mainly due to higher sea level, but can also be affected by land subsidence. In this project, Shimon and his team measure land subsidence along the urban section of the Miami-Dade coastline using precise geodetic observations.

UNAVCO will be downloading high-rate 1- and 5-sps (1 and 5 Hz) data from select NOTA GPS/GNSS stations. When downloaded, these data will be available in RINEX format from the UNAVCO high-rate data ftp site.

Ol Doinyo Lengai, a frequently active volcano in northern Tanzania, is instrumented with a real-time GNSS network to understand transient behavior and the relationship between volcanism and rifting.

Farming in coastal Bangladesh relies on polders, low-lying tracts of land enclosed by earthen embankments that protect the land from tidal surges. In a dynamic deltaic environment and a changing climate, the polders are under threat.

UNAVCO is downloading high-rate 1- and 5-sps (1 and 5 Hz) data from all NOTA GPS/GNSS stations within 70 km of the earthquake epicenter with available data for a 3-hour time window centered on the event (Figure 1).

The USGS, along with partners including UNAVCO, is developing and testing the ShakeAlert System for the U.S. West Coast, including the integration of GNSS data from real-time stations that are part of the Network of the Americas (NOTA). In addition, UNAVCO is leading the development of geodetic educational resources for ShakeAlert.

Fieldwork in Nicaragua conducted in early February 2020 supported three different projects funded by NSF and NASA. The work involved campaign GPS, repairing continuous GPS stations (cGPS), installing a new cGPS station, installing a gas sensor on Masaya volcano, UAS flights on Masaya, and (...)

The report Evolving the Geodetic Infrastructure to Meet New Scientific Needs highlights five science themes that rely on maintenance and enhancements to the geodetic infrastructure. The most stringent requirements for the accuracy and stability of the terrestrial reference frame are driven by science questions related to (...)

NOTA operates 54 GNSS stations within 1200 km of the January 28, 2020 M7.7 earthquake. These data are processed daily by the GAGE GNSS Analysis Center at Central Washington University and the position estimates used by the GAGE GNSS Analysis Center Coordinator (ACC), Professor Tom Herring of MIT, to calculate station velocities.

By PI request, UNAVCO is downloading high-rate 1-sps (1 Hz) data from 3 GPS/GNSS stations operated by UNAVCO for a 1-day time window centered on the event.

The Lake Agnes rock glacier dominates the Lake Agnes cirque, near Cameron Pass in northern Colorado, however, little is known about its kinematics or dynamics. To determine the motion of the rock glacier, UNAVCO supported Colorado State University researchers with two sets of tools that were used simultaneously: terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) and an uncrewed aircraft system (UAS).

Signals from this event were recorded by 8 GPS/GNSS stations within 300 km of the epicenter operated by UNAVCO that were streaming high rate (1-sps / 1 Hz) data in real time (Figures 2 and 3). These data allowed peak ground displacements (PGD) to be calculated automatically from the displacement traces within seconds of the earthquake (Figure 3).

The UNAVCO Board of Directors announces the selection of Dr. Rebecca Bendick as the fourth president of UNAVCO. Dr. Bendick was selected after an extensive recruitment and selection process. The Boulder, Colorado based UNAVCO is a non-profit, university governed consortium dedicated to advancing geoscience research and education through geodesy. UNAVCO operates the GAGE facility on behalf of the National Science Foundation and also receives funding from NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey.

The great earthquakes and tsunamis of 2004 (Sumatra) and 2011 (Japan) were wake-up calls that our forecasting skill for these catastrophic events remains weak. Measurement of the slow motions of the Earth's surface near active faults could help to forecast the location and the size of future earthquakes.