hpwren
HPWREN News

April 17, 2009

NEES@UCSB finishes a temporary seismic array project in Garner Valley, connected via HPWREN

By Hank Ratzesberger, NEES@UCSB, Institute for Crustal Studies - University of California, Santa Barbara

HPWREN already supports numerous seismic recording stations throughout its operating zone, including one in the Garner Valley operated by the Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES) and U.C. Santa Barbara. In 2006, the National Science Foundation awarded a research grant to NEES to study high resolution imaging techniques. Award information is available at http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0619078

Leveraging the existing station, over 30 solar powered seismometers were installed in a linear array stretching across the Valley.

The linear array crosses Garner Valley.



Each portable station has a three component (up, North, East) seismometer, solar panel and battery backup to operate continuously. The stations themselves have their own radios operating on a different frequency than HPWREN, and communicating with the existing station a few kilometers away. Their data streams are put onto HPWREN to arrive at U.C. San Diego where they are sent over the Internet to U.C. Santa Barbara and the University of Washington for archival and analysis.

The array produces almost one gigabyte of data per day, and has recorded hundreds of earthquakes since it was deployed. The project is wrapping up this year. Providing the cattle don't mind another visit by Prof. Steidl, the stations will be removed and returned to the PASSCAL Instrument Center where they will again be lent to locations around the world.

Prof. Jamison Steidl installs one of more than 30 solar powered seismometers.



A more comprehensive project overview is available at http://nees.ucsb.edu/projects/neesr-2007 and a Google map of stations can be found at http://nees.ucsb.edu/facilities/data/neesr-2007/stations.

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