Thursday, October 10th from 10:30-12 PM in the Broadway 3/4 Room
David Okaya, University of Southern California
Beatrice Magnani, Southern Methodist University
Marianne Karplus, University of Texas at El Paso
Within a few years controlled-source seismic experiments will be able to use a PASSCAL pool of one-to-a-few thousand seismic node instruments, with a related termination of the RT-125 "Texan" pool. These node instruments offer easy installation, longer power life, larger storage capacity, continuous recording, GPS timing, and three components, all in self-contained units. The current nodal instrument of choice, the Magseis Fairfield Z-Land Generation 2 node, offers these advantages but comes with some field procedural and logistical constraints. PASSCAL has created workflows and practices in order to allow for community ease-of-use. These procedures may require modifications to how we carry out academic controlled-source experiments when thousands of nodes are used.
The purpose of this SIG is to have a community discussion regarding how we will scale up to thousands of nodes, building on the experiences from smaller controlled-source node experiments we have already completed (50-400 node range). Topics will include: 1) Review of recent controlled-source nodal experiments with evaluation of what worked, what could be improved, and how they could scale to incorporate thousands of nodes, 2) Discussion on the impacts to experiment design and field operations of the procedural constraints that are associated with the PASSCAL pool, 3) Discussion on the types of controlled-source experiments that will benefit from nodal instruments and those that may be more difficult to carry out, 4) Discussion on the feasibility of currently planned procedures for archiving nodal data for thousands of nodes. Underlying issues include whether evolving trends in academic controlled-source seismology research align with building a pool of nodes, number of nodes required in the PASSCAL pool, how Fairfield nodes’ performance and constraints compare with other types of nodal seismometers. Results of this SIG will help guide the growth of the PASSCAL nodal pool.
