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

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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Contacts

E-mail

General Information: epic [dot] passcal [at] earthscope [dot] org

Main EPIC mailing list: epic.passcal.nmt.edu

 

Staff+Directory

  USPS Address EarthScope Primary Instrument Center 801 Leroy Place New Mexico Tech Socorro, NM 87801   Shipping Address EarthScope Primary Instrument Center 100 East Rd. New Mexico Tech Socorro, NM 87801   Contact EarthScope

https://www.earthscope.org/contact-us

 

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Visitors from Ecuador

Three engineers from the Escuela Politecnica Nacional Ecuador, Instituto Geofísico, spent the first two weeks of May here at EPIC. They are planning a network of 63 permanent broadband stations, 25 emergency sites, and 70 accelerometer stations in Ecuador. These stations will be used to monitor volcanic activity and seismic events. Ecuador is home to more than 20 volcanoes, so this is an important undertaking not only for the scientific knowledge it will provide, but also for the safety of the Ecuadoran people.

EPIC Announces Software release: Nexus, a simple tool for creating SEED meta-data.

EPIC is pleased to announce the release of Nexus, a simple tool for creating SEED meta-data.

Nexus is a software tool with a graphical interface that allows users to quickly and easily create and modify SEED meta-data. It outputs StationXML, the recently adopted replacement format for Dataless SEED. Nexus greatly simplifies preparing data for archival at the DMC. 

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EPIC Staff in the News

It's been an eventful media week for several of the staff of EarthScope EPIC, who were highlighted in a lengthy piece on women in science in the New Mexico Rural Electric Cooperative Association's magazine, enchantment, which is the second largest publication in New Mexico. Then, when a small earthquake rocked Socorro, more EPIC staff were prominently featured in a report on the quake in the local newspaper of record, El Defensor Chieftain.

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What was the Data Archiving Workshop all about?

EPIC provides a valuable service to the scientific community by loaning seismometers, data recorders, and other equipment to professional researchers. After the hardware installation and recovery for each experiment, the raw data are harvested from every recording disk. Sometimes there are thousands of them. The raw files are gathered and converted into standard forms called SEED or ph5 formats. The final phase of the research process, which all our users consent to when they request our equipment, is the submission of their data results for archiving at the EarthScope Data Management Center. It is not always a straightforward conversion, especially for new users and students. That's when the EPIC Data Group steps in to help.

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Station Enclosures

Introduction:

Mt. Erebus Volcano Observatory (MEVO) Experiment 2008-2009

Brian Bonnett installs a MEVO station.

The EPIC Polar Program supported MEVO experiment was a seismic refraction experiment designed to image the magma chamber of the Mt. Erebus volcano in Antarctica. The Principle Investigators (PI's) and primary researchers involved with this experiment were Dr. Phillip Kyle, Dr. Richard Aster, Dr. Catherine Snelson, Dr. Daria Zandomeneghi and Hunter Knox. The project was funded through a grant awarded to the PI's by the National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs. A paper that discusses this experiment has been published in EOS, Transactions, American Geophysical Union entitled: “Seismic Tomography of Erebus Volcano, Antarctica” authored by Zandomeneghi et al. (See the end of the article for details.)

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Power Systems

Overview

Regardless of the type of datalogger and sensor, the one constant they all need is power.

 

Batteries

Because of the relative isolation of seismic stations the most common power source is a battery. Batteries come in two main types: primary and secondary. Secondary batteries are rechargable and primary batteries are used once then discarded.

Most experiments that utilize dataloggers will use deep cycle lead-acid batteries. The size and capacity of the lead-acid battery will vary with datalogger type, sensor type, telemetry, solar panel size, and geographic location.

At least 3 months before a long-term experiment is scheduled to go in the field, you should consult with EPIC personnel to discuss the power requirements for your experiment.

 

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