Halfway There: An EarthScope Plate Boundary Observatory Progress Report
Abstract
The Plate Boundary Observatory (PBO), part of the NSF-funded EarthScope project, is designed to study the three-dimensional strain field resulting from deformation across the active boundary zone between the Pacific and North American plates in the western United States. To meet these goals, UNAVCO will install 852 continuous GPS stations, 103 borehole strainmeter stations, 28 tiltmeters, and five laser strainmeters by October 2008, acquire radar imagery and geochronology as well as manage data for 209 previously existing continuous GPS stations through the PBO Nucleus project. As of September 2006, UNAVCO had completed half the PBO GPS stations, with 426 installed and data returned from 400 stations, and 60% of the PBO Nucleus stations have been upgraded. Highlights of the past year's work include the expansion of the Alaska subnetwork to nearly 70 continuously-operating stations, including coverage of Akutan and Augustine volcanoes and reconnaissance for future installations on Unimak Island; the installation of nine new stations on Mt. St. Helens; and the arrival of 33 permits for station installations on BLM land in Nevada. The Augustine network provided critical data on magmatic and volcanic processes associated with the 2005-2006 volcanic crisis, and is now being expanded to a total of 11 stations. Please visit http://pboweb.unavco.org/?pageid=3 for further information on PBO GPS network construction activities. UNAVCO is also installing and operating the largest borehole seismic/strainmeter network in North America, as well as tiltmeters and laser strainmeters. As of September 2006, 19 PBO borehole stations had been installed and two laser strainmeter stations were operating, with a total of 28 borehole stations and 3 laser strainmeters expected by the end of 2006. In response to direction from the EarthScope community, UNAVCO has installed a dense network of six stations along the San Jacinto Fault near Anza, California. During the fall of 2006, the first borehole stations will be installed on Mt. St. Helens, along with the first PBO borehole tiltmeters, and work will begin to densify the network near Parkfield. Please visit http://pboweb.unavco.org/?pageid=8 for more information on PBO strainmeter network construction progress. The combined PBO/Nucleus GPS network has now provided almost 150 GB of raw data, with special downloads of more than 15 GB of high-rate GPS data following the March 2006 Koryakia, Russia and May 2006 Tonga earthquakes. These GPS data are processed routinely to generate data products including station position time series, velocity vectors, and related information, and all data products are available from the UNAVCO Facility archive. The PBO seismic network seismic network has provided 60 GB of raw data, which are available from the IRIS Data Management Center (DMC). The PBO strainmeter network has provided nearly 30 GB of raw data, available in both raw native format and SEED format from the Northern California Earthquake Data Center and the IRIS DMC, along with higher-level products such as cleaned strain time series and related information. Please visit http://pboweb.unavco.org/?pageid=88 and http://pboweb.unavco.org/?pageid=89 for more information on PBO GPS and strainmeter/seismic data products.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2006
- Bibcode:
- 2006AGUFM.G42A..08J
- Keywords:
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- 1243 Space geodetic surveys;
- 8150 Plate boundary: general (3040);
- 8419 Volcano monitoring (7280)