UNAVCO Response to the M7.2 El Mayor-Cucapah Earthquake

The El Mayor - Cucapah earthquake occurred close to the Mexico - U.S. border, at the edge of the EarthScope - Plate Boundary Observatory (PBO’s) footprint. UNAVCO was one of several community organizations to support event response, providing co-seismic observations from PBO’s CGPS stations, borehole strainmeters and seismometers, the shipment of a Terrestrial LiDAR Scanner, and the acquisition of InSAR data through the UNAVCO-hosted WiNSAR consortium. PBO standard 15 second GPS data spanning the event for sites throughout southern California were recorded at 100% data completeness and were used to establish co-seismic displacement hours to days following the earthquake. High-rate (1-5 Hz) GPS downloads were completed with a 97% data return and used by community members to plot co-seismic displacement waveforms. In the months following the event 1Hz GPS data has been collected a disseminated for multiple airborne lidar and photography missions. CGPS station P796, a deep-drilled braced monument, was constructed in San Luis, AZ along the border within 5 weeks of the event. In addition, UNAVCO participated in a successful University of Arizona-led proposal for the deployment of six continuous GPS stations for post-seismic observations. These stations will be installed, maintained and data analyzed by UNAVCO/PBO in coordination with CICESE, an Associate Member institution in Mexico. At present two stations (ALAX, SITX) are installed with 4 remaining permits in process.