Based on a proposal by Dr. Vince Cronin, Baylor's Center for Spatial Research was awarded a contract in 2008 to locate suitable sites for 21 seismographs, to be installed as part of the Earthscope Transportable Array. Earthscope is the largest geoscience project ever funded by the U.S. government, and involves hundreds of researchers and dozens of universities in the U.S. and abroad. The USArray is a major element of the EarthScope project, and includes a number of seismic and magnetotelluric experiments.
The Transportable Array is a short-term network of 400 broadband seismographs installed in a N-S, E-W grid, with a spacing of ~75 km between seismographs. An EarthScope-produced map of the TA grid plan is shown at left. Each seismograph station represents an investment of ~$100,000 in siting costs, construction and instrumentation. Starting in the western United States in 2004, the seismographs collect data for ~2 years and are then moved eastward to new locations. Between 2007 and 2013, approximately 1600 sites will have been occuppied across the continental United States (and subsequently in Alaska) to collect the most detailed picture of the structure of the North American continent ever attempted.
Visualizations of earthquake waves recorded by the Transportable Array have been produced by the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS), and are available online at http://www.iris.washington.edu/hq/programs/education_and_outreach/visualizations. The visualization of the magnitude 6 earthquake near Wells, Nevada, in February 2008 is particularly interesting, because the earthquake occurred within the Transportable Array's footprint: http://www.iris.washington.edu/hq/usarray_animations/movies/Event_2008_052_14_16_02.mov.
Baylor is the institutional host for two seismographs that are part of the reference seismograph network of the USArray. The two reference stations were installed in late 2008-early 2009 by crews employed by EarthScope and IRIS. The seismographs and associated equipment are owned and operated by IRIS on behalf of EarthScope. One seismograph station is called ABTX, and is located near Abilene, Texas. The other is WHTX, located near Lake Whitney, Texas. These stations are intended to remain operational for at least 10 years, and may become a permanent part of the US national seismic network. Dr. Jay Pulliam of the Baylor Geology Department is the contact person for ABTX, and Dr. Vince Cronin is the contact person for WHTX.
Seismograph stations ABTX and WHTX were established on private property, and are not available to the public. In fact, their locations were selected to minimize the noise from road traffic, railroads, pipelines, airplanes, quarries, and other possible sources of vibrational interference with these very sensitive devices. There is not much to see at either of these stations, other than a small mound of dirt and a fence around a solar panel and a couple of antennas. The seismometer and all of its electronics are locked in an insulated vault underground, and the vault is only opened by IRIS technicians in the unlikely event that there is a system failure.
Information about the two seismographs is made available online by the EarthScope Array Network Facility (ANF; anf.ucsd.edu/ )
The 24-hr record of the vertical component from each of these seismographs is available via software created by the University of South Carolina:
The Global Earthquake Explorer (GEE) has a real-time viewer that allows you to view the seismograms from each of 3 components of motion detected by a seismometer. For more information about GEE, go to the South Carolina Earth Physics Program at www.seis.sc.edu/software.html and www.seis.sc.edu/gee/about.html
Related news stories
Alaskan Earthquake 'to be Expected,' says Baylor Researcher
Earth-Shaking Science, published in Baylor Magazine and Baylor Magazine Online
Could an earthquake topple Lake Waco dam? published in the Waco Tribune-Herald, 26 May 2009
Baylor Scientists Participate in Largest Federal Geoscience Project To Date
This page is maintained by Vince Cronin (Vince_Cronin@baylor.edu). Please let him know if you encounter any bad links or bad information via this page.
The URL of this page is http://bearspace.baylor.edu/Vince_Cronin/www/ActiveTectonics/WHTX_ABTX.html
Created November 17, 2009