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

40Hz High Frequency Sensor

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.

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Transantarctic Mountains Deployments

 

Audrey Huerta, Assistant Professor in the Department of Geological Sciences at Central Washington University, has graciously provided some videos of recent installations and deployments in the Transantarctic Mountains. They include footage of using a chain saw to deploy solar panels in the ice, a time lapse of a polar seismic system installation, and thermochronology sampling while rappelling.

(Photograph courtesy NSF)

Passive Source (SEED) Archiving Documentation

Main Documentation for PASSIVE Source Data Processing (SEED)

The documentation below offers instructions for archiving data from EPIC instrumentation in miniSEED format with metadata to be submitted as stationXML. To archive data from a EPIC experiment, select the appropriate documentation for your instrument for instructions for preparing the data before transferring it to EPIC. For the metadata, EPIC offers software for generating stationXML for your experiment. Please see the documentation for metadata generation using Nexus.

For EPIC PIs who previously archived data using Antelope, our documentation has been reworked to generate metadata in stationXML format via the EPIC program Nexus rather than using an Antelope database to create a dataless SEED. The documentation for archiving data with Antelope is still available on this page.

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POLENET

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.

Frequently Asked Questions Regarding Data Requests from PH5 Data Sets

Here are frequently asked questions regarding data requests from PH5 data sets archived at the EarthScope DMC.  The answers are based upon the perspective the user is at the Data Request Form, which is available for each PH5 data set via its "Request" link found on the PH5 data set web page of the EarthScope DMC website.

1. How do I select the length of the record?

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EPIC supports Salton Seismic Imaging Project (SSIP)

Six EPIC staff members were in Southern California this March to support the Salton Seismic Imaging Project (SSIP).  The project is funded by NSF through both the MARGINS Program (now GeoPRISMS) and the EarthScope Program, and funded by the U. S. Geological Survey through the Multi-Hazards Demonstration Project. The project includes researchers from Virginia Tech, Caltech, the USGS, and Mexican partner institutions CICESE and UABC, Mexicali.

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Power Box

The Power Box is a combination of enclosure, solar charge controller, and connectors which ensure the battery is charged and the instrumentation is powered. Below are some pictures of the EPIC power box (and below that is the old standard EPIC power box) . All the power boxes have a 12-15 amp load capacity and a Low Voltage Disconnect (LVD) to prevent damage to the battery. These boxes are designed to work with any nominal 12 volt solar panel and any deep cycle gel-cell lead acid battery.

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Batteries

Batteries are PI Supplied.

Batteries come in two main types, primary which are single use and secondary which are rechargeable.

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Huddle testing feedback-sensors and dataloggers

Introduction

“Huddle”-testing sensors before field deployment is a key part of any seismic experiment.  Huddle-testing involves testing almost all components of the field station, for many stations, in parallel.  The number of stations that can be tested at one time is limited only by availability of personnel and lab space.

Huddle-testing potentially reduces crew time spent in the field, cost of the experiment, and the need to revisit sites.  Huddle-testing improves crew consistency and most importantly, the likelihood of successful station deployments and survival.

Instrumentation

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.

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