GeoEarthScope - ESA Cat-1 proposal for Basin & Range

GeoEarthScope, a component of the EarthScope Facility project, includes the acquisition of aerial and satellite imagery and geochronology to examine the strain field beyond the decade time scales available from the PBO geodetic instrumentation and to assist with station siting. In order to meet the goals of EarthScope, UNAVCO intends to acquire InSAR imagery for selected targets from appropriate providers. As part of this effort UNAVCO is preparing to submit a Category-1 data request proposal to the European Space Agency (ESA) to acquire InSAR imagery for the Basin and Range region of North America. GeoEarthScope funding for this particular acquisition was allocated based upon a successful proposal submitted to NSF by P.I. Falk Amelung (Univ. of Miami).

In general, data acquired with EarthScope Major Research Equipment Facility Construction (MREFC) funding become part of the freely accessible EarthScope data set. However, because of ESA restrictions on the distribution of images acquired through Cat-1 proposals, the same EarthScope policy cannot be applied directly to ESA products acquired with EarthScope funding. After discussion and negotiation with ESA we have worked out the following guidelines for GeoEarthScope InSAR acquisitions. These guidelines will allow us to make GeoEarthScope InSAR data available to all EarthScope investigators through the WInSAR archive with a minimum of inconvenience, while at the same time, respecting the concerns of the data source, ESA.

Accordingly, UNAVCO will establish a GeoEarthScope catalog of ESA data acquired through Cat-1 proposals for various regions within the PBO footprint. For each region, ESA has requested that we maintain a list of researchers with an immediate interest in those associated InSAR scenes. An "immediate interest" is interpreted to mean a clear intent to produce publications utilizing the data within the next several years. Requirements for being included in the list of researchers for a given region will be those applicable to joining WInSAR plus a GeoEarthScope Statement of Interest as described below. GeoEarthScope data acquired through an ESA Cat-1 will be made available using the same WInSAR catalog system we use for other SAR data, with download privileges restricted to the subset of users identified by the GeoEarthScope lists of researchers. The list of researchers with access to a given region can be expanded (or contracted) at any time as investigators develop (or lose) interest in a region and request a change in their status.

Based on these guidelines, UNAVCO therefore seeks input from EarthScope community members who would like to be considered for inclusion as Co-Investigators in a GeoEarthScope Basin and Range Cat-1 proposal to ESA. Co-Investigators on the acquisition Cat-1 proposal will be limited to those with a clear intent to publish results using the requested data in the near future. Additional Co-Investigators can be easily added to the access list in the future.

UNAVCO plans to pursue additional ESA Cat-1 proposals for other regions within the PBO footprint as well. Future acquisition targets, however, will be identified and prioritized by the GeoEarthScope InSAR working group as part of the new GeoEarthScope plan. The GeoEarthScope InSAR working group will meet for the first time on July 11-12, 2006. Additional requests for Statements of Interest will be issued for these data sets as they are identified.

If you have interest in Basin and Range InSAR data and would like access to these data as soon as they are available, please email a Statement of Interest to David Phillips, dapunavco.org, by the 15th of July 2006. A sample Statement of Interest is attached as an example.

Please note: We can add names to the access list at any time. There is no need to submit a Statement of Interest unless you have a current interest.

Thank you very much,

Will Prescott, President of UNAVCO
David Phillips, GeoEarthScope Project Manager

Sample Statement of Interest

Last modified: 2019-12-24  02:12:56  America/Denver