Although EPIC station installations can vary according to the type of equipment being used, servicing is relatively straightforward and similar between station designs and equipment. 

Station servicing has 3 main goals:
• To retrieve waveform data recorded by the station since the previous service;
• To identify and rectify any problems with equipment or damage to the station;
• To refresh consumable items such as compact flash (CF) cards, batteries, etc.

A simple station with easy vehicular access should take around 20 man-minutes to service.

10W or 20W of solar power are usually sufficient for summer only experiment depending on a typical seismic station load.

EarthScope EPIC's Polar Group uses both the Suntech STP010 (10W) and the STP020 (20W).  They are both efficient, monocrystalline silicon solar panels and have strong frames.  A mount was designed in house and manufactured specifically for these panels to attached them directly to our  “summer only” enclosures.

The Nanometrics Trillium 240 is a symmetric triaxial broadband instrument that has a flat response to ground velocity between 240s and 200Hz, and has a low self-noise, below the New Low Noise Model between 100s and 10Hz.  The manufacturer specifications of operating temperatures are between -20C and +50C, but the Trillium 240 has operated reliably for us to temperatures below -60C.  The power consumption at low seismic noise conditions and with the instrument well leveled is about 650mW.  The Trillium has a +/-1deg tilt tolerance, is fairly sensitive to varying temperature, but was designed to be insensitive to atmospheric variations.

The Trillium 240 is well suited for medium to long term experiments in the Arctic and Antarctic supported by the EarthScope EPIC Polar Program.

Download Diagram of Vault (jpg)

Construction of the vault for broadband seismometers has a direct impact on data quality. Before construction can begin there are two other important considerations as well; location, and setting. A short discussion of these topics precedes the construction details because you should really pick the right site before going to all the work of building a vault. It takes a long time to find good sites which balance the competing requirements of low noise, access, security, position within the array, power, permission, etc. Finding one site per day is fairly productive.