EarthScope’s Transportable Array in Alaska and Western Canada

Abstract:

EarthScope’s Transportable Array (TA) in Alaska and Canada is an ongoing deployment of 261 high quality broadband seismographs. The Alaska TA is the continuation of the rolling TA/USArray deployment of 400 broadband seismographs in the lower 48 contiguous states and builds on the success of the TA project there. The TA in Alaska and Canada is operated by the IRIS Consortium on behalf of the National Science Foundation as part of the EarthScope program. By Sept 2015, it is anticipated that the TA network in Alaska and Canada will be operating 105 stations. During the summer 2015, TA field crews comprised of IRIS and HTSI station specialists, as well as representatives from our partner agencies the Alaska Earthquake Center and the Alaska Volcano Observatory and engineers from the UNAVCO Plate Boundary Observatory will have completed a total of 36 new station installations. Additionally, we will have completed upgrades at 9 existing Alaska Earthquake Center stations with borehole seismometers and the adoption of an additional 35 existing stations.

As the array doubles in Alaska, IRIS continues to collaborate closely with other network operators, universities and research consortia in Alaska and Canada including the Alaska Earthquake Center (AEC), the Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO), the UNAVCO Plate Boundary Observatory (PBO), the National Tsunami Warning Center (NTWC), Natural Resources Canada (NRCAN), Canadian Hazard Information Service (CHIS), the Yukon Geologic Survey (YGS), the Pacific Geoscience Center of the Geologic Survey, Yukon College and others. During FY14 and FY15 the TA has completed upgrade work at 20 Alaska Earthquake Center stations and 2 AVO stations, TA has co-located borehole seismometers at 5 existing PBO GPS stations to augment the EarthScope observatory.

We present an overview of deployment plan and the status through 2015. The performance of new Alaska TA stations including improvements to existing stations is described.