Fairfield Geotechnologies ZLand Seismic Nodes: Installing, Testing and Data Analysis at Castle Rock, Antarctica
Abstract
In February 2018 we installed six Fairfield Geotechnologies Zland Gen2 three-channel seismic nodes at Castle Rock, Antarctica to better understand their use in Polar environments. As part of this study we examined the effect of different installation techniques on sensor coupling, instrument performance with warm and cold starts, and the effect of snow sintering, bonding and temperature on signal quality. The nodes were equally distributed along a half circle with radius of 15m. The instruments collected data continuously during which time we performed a series of hammer strikes. Three of the nodes stayed in ground and recorded data continuously for the duration of the experiment, while the other three were removed and installed only during the hammer strikes.
Our Antarctic deployment was also used as an initial shakedown for the Zland system and components. We tested single node charging and data harvesting in-field to determine the practicality and viability of this procedure for future deployments. The Zland node requires dangerous goods handling when shipping. For this reason, we closely monitored all stages of shipping, transportation and handling from the time instruments left the PASSCAL instrument center (PIC) to arrival in McMurdo and the return shipment to our facility. With expansion of Zland Node pool at the PIC and rising interest in using these nodes in Polar Regions, this is an important logistical step to take into account for our shipping and logistics group at the facility. Upon arrival of the nodes to the PIC, data from the nodes were harvested on our servers and converted from the native Fairfield continuous format into PH5 data volume using the PASSCAL-developed PH5 software suite. We then extracted the data in SAC, SEGY and miniseed for analysis. We analyzed the power and amplitude spectra of the seismic data over time and correlated our observations with the nearby McMurdo and Scott base weather stations to determine noise sources and their effects on data quality. We also analyzed quality of hammer shot signals with the burial type and temperature of the nodes. We performed statistical analysis on the data and compared our results with similar tests performed at the PIC and on our piers.- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018AGUFM.S43E0668M
- Keywords:
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- 7294 Seismic instruments and networks;
- SEISMOLOGY