Salient Features:

EPIC owns two types of 40Hz vertical geophones.

The 40Hz geophones for the Multichannel Digitizer Systems are manufactured by Sercel and Geospace.  These vertical geophones are critically damped at 0.555 and have a sensitivity of about 21 V/m/s. The 40Hz geophones for the Texan Digitizers these geophones are manufactured by Sercel.  These vertical geophones are critically damped at 0.555 and have a sensitivity of 35.3 V/m/s

Uses primarily include active source studies.

When the earth shook near Richmond, Virginia on August 23, 2011 at 1:51 PM EDT (17:51:04 UTC), millions of inhabitants of the eastern seaboard were surprised by the magnitude 5.8 tremor. The seismic community has responded in force, rapidly deploying dozens of new stations to record aftershocks of this rare event. (The largest previous earthquake in Virginia's history was a magnitude 5.9 event in 1897.)

This  image, provided by the National Park Service, is one of three or four "significant" new cracks in the Washington Monument. The picture was taken from a Park Service helicopter. The Monument is being closed to the public indefinitely.

Instrumentation to support portable seismology available from the EPIC:

Dataloggers - This section encompasses the equipment which take in data and stores it on some type of non-volatile media.

Power Systems - All the required equipment to keep a seismic station continuously powered throughout its deployment.

Sensors - The equipment that actually detects and quantifies ground motion. The sensor sends this information to the datalogger through a cable.

POLENET Project

The Polar Earth Observing Network (POLENET) is a large international, multidisciplinary project which is a core activity of the International Polar Year (IPY) 2007-2009.  The project combines Seismic and GPS instrumentation at remote sites in Antarctica.  The data collected during the POLENET experiment will enable new studies of the inner earth, tectonic plates, climate, and weather.  U.S. POLENET projects are supported by the National Science Foundation. EPIC supports the U.S. seismic portion of POLENET by providing specialized cold-hardened, equipment, field support, and training for University based field teams.