Zion Canyon’s beauty and scale wouldn’t be possible without countless rockfall events that hastened its carving. But now that human infrastructure exists in the park—carrying millions of visitors each year—rockfall presents a significant risk that has to be managed. UNAVCO recently supported a project assessing that risk in two locations in the park.
Italy has experienced several deadly earthquakes in recent years. They all occurred within a complicated fault system that challenges our models for fault behavior. An array of instruments has been deployed across the region to help geoscientists around the world study these faults. And with support from UNAVCO, the latest addition to that array is a number of borehole strainmeters.
On August 14, a devastating magnitude 7.2 earthquake hit Nippes, Haiti, causing thousands of deaths and widespread damage to homes, churches, schools, and other infrastructure. In the midst of this humanitarian crisis, geoscientists are working to understand exactly what happened on the fault (or faults) responsible—which is critical to understanding future risk.
This is one post in a series on the Alaska Amphibious Community Seismic Experiment blog following a field campaign in response to the magnitude 8.2 Chignik earthquake. (You can find the UNAVCO event response page for this earthquake here.) We are reprinting posts contributed by UNAVCO staff here but you can follow along on the blog to read the rest. This post comes from UNAVCO Project Manager Ken Austin.
As we work together to establish a vision for a comprehensive geophysical observatory beyond 2023, we recognize the importance of demonstrating the success of our collaboration now and in the past. The UNAVCO operated GAGE facility and the SAGE facility operated by IRIS comprise future components of The EarthScope Consortium, Inc.
Project Overview 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. An avalanche early warning system could significantly reduce the costs associated with shutting down mountain roadways and ski areas as well as save lives. In early December 2019, UNAVCO … Continued
Project Overview Florida coastal communities are periodically subjected to flooding events, which are induced by heavy rain, high tide, and storm surge. Over the past decade several coastal communities have experienced an increase in flooding frequency, causing significant impacts to property, commerce, and overall quality of life. Shimon Wdowinski’s recent study of Miami Beach flooding … Continued
Project Overview 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. The data are telemetered to UNAVCO and then distributed free with open access through the UNAVCO Data Archive as well as the Tanzania Volcano Observatory … Continued
Project Overview 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. Factors influencing long-term stability of polders include subsidence, sedimentation, river migrations, flooding, storm surges, and sea level … Continued
Project Overview Fieldwork in Nicaragua conducted in early February 2020 supported three different projects funded by NSF and NASA, as noted above. The work involved setting up GPS equipment for campaign surveys (eGPS), installing new campaign monuments, repairing continuous GPS stations (cGPS), installing a new cGPS station, installing a gas sensor on Masaya volcano, UAS … Continued