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Here are some of the articles that have been recently posted to the PASSCAL website:

Pre-AGU EPIC Users Workshop 2014

Late-stage graduate students! Postdocs! Researchers and faculty!

EarthScope/EPIC would like to invite you to register for our EPIC Users Workshop to be held on Sunday December 14th, 2014 (the day before the beginning of the AGU Fall meeting). 

This year’s workshop will give an overview of the EPIC facility, the services we provide and how to access them.  We will have two special guest speakers, PIs who have successfully planned for an run international and large-scale EPIC projects.  This year's speakers are Anne Meltzer of Lehigh University (large-scale broadband deployments in Pakistan, Tibet, and Mongolia) and David Okaya of the University of Southern California (large active source projects in Taiwan, New Zealand and Japan).

But wait, there is more! The EPIC Program Manager, Kent Anderson, as well as the EPIC Director, Bruce Beaudoin, will be on hand for questions and discussion as well.  Ask questions and discuss ideas about current/future projects before AGU really starts and the talks, posters, dinners, and other meetings start clamoring for everybody's attention and time!

This workshop will be useful to anyone who has an upcoming EPIC supported experiment, or is planning to propose an experiment, and will be particularly useful to current graduate students and new investigators.

05/11/2015
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EPIC Scientist Describes Working in Antarctica for Enthusiastic Library Audience

On June 23, 2014, EPIC Senior Staff Scientist/Polar Project Field Engineer Dean Childs gave a talk on "Working in Antarctica" to an absorbed audience at the Socorro Public Library.

Dean's talk ran 1 hour and 45 minutes, including a followup Q&A. He discussed several topics with the 25+ attendees, who ranged in age from 7 to 70.

03/23/2015
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EarthScope/EPIC User Workshop, AGU San Francisco - 2010

 

EarthScope/EPIC would like to invite you to register for our second annual EPIC Users Workshop to be held on December 12th 2010 (the day before the beginning of the AGU Fall meeting).  This year’s workshop will give an overview of the EPIC program, the services we provide and how to access them.  This workshop should be useful to anyone who has an upcoming EPIC supported experiment, or is planning to propose an experiment, but will be particularly useful to new investigators.

The morning session (8:00-12:00) will be formal presentations covering such topics as:

·      Field procedures 

12/18/2014
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EarthScope/TA Featured on the Weather Channel

The EarthScope/Transportable Array program was highlighted on the Weather Channel in an April 26th report by correspondent Dave Malkoff, titled "A CT Scan for the Earth." The segment included the actual installation of an EarthScope/TA vault in Virginia, and featured appearances by several EarthScope/TA team members, a discussion on the need for computerized tomography of the earth's interior, and an animation of the effects of Hurricane Sandy as seen by the Transportable Array.

12/18/2014
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RefTek GPS Alert


Dear EPIC Users:

This note is to alert all past and current users of RefTek RT130 hardware that these instruments have been experiencing GPS failures in-field. To date, the failures are geographically confined to East Africa and symptoms include intermittent or total loss of timing.

It is worth noting that in reviewing close to two years of repair records, 1303 GPS have been returned to PIC from 69 experiments, excluding those in East Africa, and the total number of GPS units that needed any type of maintenance or repair was 30. There is no evidence at this time that there is a global problem with our RefTek GPS.

We are recommending that all users of EPIC RefTek RT130 dataloggers review their data and log files for signs of GPS failure that are consistent with the failures seen in East Africa. To identify failure behavior please visit this page for a brief tutorial. If you identify failures in your data, please contact passcal [at] passcal [dot] nmt [dot] edu and include "RT130 GPS failure" in the subject line and unit serial numbers in the body of the email.

10/13/2014
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Array of Arrays: Elusive ETS in the Cascadia Subduction Zone

ETS, or 'episodic tremor and slip', is a recently discovered phenomenon in seismic research. Similar to earthquakes but much smaller in magnitude, ETS events are associated with the subduction zone of some convergent plate boundaries. One such region, the Cascadia subduction zone under the Puget Sound, is the focus of an experiment by Ken Creager's group at the University of Washington (UW), called Array of Arrays.

09/08/2014
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Installing a "Cold and Dark" Seismic Station in the Yukon

On October 8-13, 2012, a three-man team from the EarthScope Transportable Array and EarthScope/EPIC installed a prototype "cold and dark" seismic station at Eagle Plains, Yukon Territory, Canada, just 30km south of the Arctic Circle.  The station installation developed new methodologies for drilling a shallow, 55" deep borehole in exposed bedrock. Protection for electronics, power, and communication subsystems (from the elements, and from large wildlife) was provided by an all-weather hut bolted to bedrock.

08/26/2014
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P.I. Transition coming to the EarthScope/EPIC

After 15 years of shepherding the EarthScope EPIC as Principal Investigator, Rick Aster will be leaving NM Tech to begin a new phase of his career at Colorado State University as Geosciences Department Head, beginning in January of 2014. Principal Investigator duties will be assumed by Susan Bilek, Associate Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Science beginning October 1, 2013. After moving to Colorado, Rick will remain engaged with EarthScope as an active community member and as Chair of the Data Management System Standing Committee, and will continue to interact with Sue, NM Tech, and the Instrument Center on continuing projects and as a user of EarthScope facilities for Antarctic and other research.

04/29/2014
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EarthScope/EPIC Intern Caps Busy Summer with Alaska Deployment at Poker Flat

It's been a busy summer for EarthScope/EPIC intern Kasey Aderhold, a PhD Candidate at the Department of Earth & Environment, Boston University. Kasey has been heavily involved in an ongoing comparison of seismic vaults to direct burial installations at two sites: the Dotson Ranch near Socorro, NM, and Poker Flat in Alaska. 

 

03/03/2014
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Station Installation Procedure

Introduction:

EPIC station installations can vary according to the type of equipment being used, the physical environment, and also the legal responsibilities due the land owner or administrator.  For the latter, it is assumed that the full consent of the land owner/administrator for the station to be installed, operated for the required duration, and then final removal has been obtained.  It is further assumed that state laws regarding digging permits are also being followed. See also Guidelines for Station Installation.

Installing a EPIC seismic station involves the placement of a number of different, but coupled, sub-systems, including (but not limited to):

10/09/2013
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