Download the 2006 Annual Report - IRIS

Installing the EarthScope Reference Network Seismic Stations
John S. Derr, Kyle E. Persefield, Stephen C. Roberts, Jared D. Anderson, Alena L. Leeds, Douglas G. Ford, Gary S. Gyure, Charles R. Hutt, Lind
S. Gee, Kent R. Anderson
WRAB - IDA engineer Todd Johnson lowers a
KS-54000 into a borehole at GSN station WRAB
(Warramunga, Australia).
At midnight on September 30,
Steve Roberts and Mike Busby
drove into the Albuquerque Seismic
Laboratory (ASL) compound. For the
first time in many months, all of the
USGS Albuquerque Seismological
Laboratory’s field vehicles were
parked beside each other. Everyone
was home safely: zero accidents, a
couple of scrapes and bruises, but
no major injuries, and 100% of
the seismic stations in the USArray
Reference Network were installed
– on time and under budget. A
team of very talented and dedicated
people met the goal of installing 39
new and upgraded stations in three
years. Almost all of the stations
are producing excellent data, as
illustrated by the records of the
October 15, 2006, M6.7 earthquake
in Hawaii. These stations will be a valuable contribution
to the Advanced National Seismic System (ANSS) of the
USGS and are a shining example of the cooperation and
collaboration among the USGS, IRIS, EarthScope, and the
National Science Foundation.
The Reference Network project is
a combination of new and upgraded
stations that both expands the ANSS
Backbone national network, and provides
a fiducial reference network for both the
EarthScope USArray facility and the
USGS Earthquake Hazards Program.
Of the 39 stations in the plan for this
project, 35 were actually either completely
new installations or major overhauls
of existing National Seismic Network
(NSN) stations. They comprise 13 new
surface vault stations, 12 overhauled
shallow sites, 3 new borehole sites, 7 new
deep vaults, all with completely new
sensors, data-acquisition, power and
communication systems. The remaining
four stations tap into existing GSNaffiliate
stations installed and maintained
as part of the Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty Organization/International
Monitoring System and the US Atomic
Energy Detection System programs.
The goal of this program was to have
the Reference Network completed more
than a year before the first footprint
of the Transportable Array was to be
moved. Therefore, the time to complete
this work was under three years. With
vast experience in seismic station
installations and a history with the NSN,
IRIS asked the USGS and its ASL and
Golden, CO staff (including its prime
contractor, Honeywell) to perform all this
development work with confidence that
the work would be completed on time.
Because every station was different,
each one was an opportunity to work
with new people. The project worked
on public lands whenever possible, thus
stations were located in national and
state parks, national forests and wildlife
refuges, university lands, a USGS
facility, and one even on a National
Guard camp. Some agencies greeted our
inquiries with great interest, especially
in the western United States, but some
private landowners wouldn’t have
anything to do with the US government.
In some cases, institutions requested and received IRIS
museum educational displays, featuring the local seismic
data, as well as recent world seismicity. Creative thinking was
involved in several cases, including one site where paperwork
was facilitated by a joint interest in a power cable.