The seismic and geodetic Polar communities have worked with EarthScope and UNAVCO to provide a plan for the growth, development, management and governance of Polar support services for the NSF facilities. This plan is now complete and posted on the EarthScope webpage.

Here is the executive summary from the report:

Jim Fowler started as EarthScope Chief Engineer in 1984, and became the founding manager for the EPIC program.  In 1999, he relocated from Washington D.C. back to his home state of New Mexico, and set up an office in the EPIC.  As a news article from New Mexico Tech noted,

"My wife, Cynthia, and I are originally from New Mexico, so it really wasn't as difficult for us to move here as it might have been for someone who's a hardcore 'Easterner,'" Fowler says.

"Since most of my work involved the Instrument Center, it seemed best for all concerns if my office was actually located at the Instrument Center," Fowler points out. "Basically, instead of living in Washington and commuting to New Mexico, I now live in New Mexico and commute to Washington."

The 2011 Seismic Instrumentation Technology Symposium was held at Albuquerque Marriott on June 16 - June 17, 2011. This was the second joint Seismology/Earthquake Engineering/DOD symposium on seismic instrumentation technology.  The symposium theme was exploration of emerging instrumentation technologies providing solutions for key technical challenges in observational seismology. Symposium presentations highlighted operator perspectives on these challenges, as well as on emerging technologies in the thematic areas of communications, power, and timing. The symposium focused on creating and facilitating a dialog between academia, industry, and others.

March 7th, 2017

With the expansion of TA Alaska into even more remote regions of Alaska and Canada it was necessary to develop and construct an extremely lightweight, high performance helicopter portable air rotary drill weighing less than 1700 lbs and capable of installing a 6” steel casing 2.7m deep in any type of ground including solid rock, frost shattered overburden, cobbles and frozen soils.  Based on these parameters, a custom drill rig system was commissioned and tested by EarthScope for specific use on the project.  At EPIC we had the opportunity to be among the first testing locations for the newly constructed third generation Purple Drill.  Ryan Bierma, and Max Enders along with Bob Busby from EarthScope and Mike Lundgren  from Lundgren Systems (rig developer) operated the rig, and then Ryan and Max demonstrated a mock installation of an STS-5A seismic sensor at the test site behind EPIC in Socorro, NM.