Plate Boundary Observatory East Region Update and Status: Supporting New Science Through Enhanced Telemetry, Monument Evaluation, and Continued Operations and Maintenance
Abstract
The EarthScope Plate Boundary Observatory (PBO) - East Region consists of 280 continuously operating GPS sites in a region that extends from the western border of California to the East Coast of the U.S. We present a number of highlights from the operations and maintenance (O&M) of the network in FY2012. One goal for 2012 was to replace poorly performing stations and another was to fill in some of the gaps in the eastern region of PBO. Accordingly, new GPS sites were installed at several locations across the mid-west, including in Wisconsin and South Dakota. CAYU, a GPS station at Cayuga College, New York also was incorporated into the PBO data flow to replace the poorly performing PBO station, LOZ1. UNAVCO now manages over 20 PBO GPS stations east of the Rocky Mountains, including 2 GPS stations installed in November 2011 as part of an NSF-funded RAPID project to the study of the post-rupture crustal relaxation resulting from the M5.8 Mineral, VA earthquake. PBO engineers also are constructing two additional monuments at five existing PBO sites to compare the performance of different monument types in different geological and tectonic settings. In addition, PBO engineers are upgrading GPS stations in Colorado and New Mexico, which comprise the semi-permanent Rio Grande Rift GPS network, and which have been downloaded manually for over 6 years, to cellular data communications. Lastly, engineers from the PBO-East region continued to support special projects from EarthScope-funded PIs, including Dr. Kristine Larson, who is advancing the use of GPS multipath observations to estimate snow depth (PBO H20) and vegetation growth. In summary, the PBO East Region sub-network state of health remained consistently above 97% throughout 2012, a testament to network hardening completed during the last three years of PBO O&M.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2012
- Bibcode:
- 2012AGUFM.G23B0922D
- Keywords:
-
- 1200 GEODESY AND GRAVITY