Chuck Meertens Retires from UNAVCO Dr. Charles (Chuck) Meertens retired from UNAVCO after 35 years of service to the geodetic community. Chuck was a founding employee of the UNAVCO Facility in 1984.

Read more 2020-09

UNAVCO's Statement on Equity, Inclusion, and Racial Justice In light of the recent events that dramatically illuminate the inequities of our country, the staff of UNAVCO reaffirm our values and share actions we are planning to address inclusion. This means taking a hard look at our current organization and culture.

Read more 2020-06

Measuring Coastal Subsidence for Resilience in Florida Increasing coastal flooding has occurred mainly due to higher sea level, but can also be affected by land subsidence. In this project, Shimon and his team measure land subsidence along the urban section of the Miami-Dade coastline using precise geodetic observations.

Read more 2020-05

GAGE/SAGE Science Workshop Postponed to August 2021 Due to the COVID-19 situation, the Board of Directors for UNAVCO and IRIS have agreed to postpone the in-person GAGE/SAGE Science Workshop until August 2021 (exact dates will be confirmed soon). This decision was not reached lightly but came after much deliberation.

Read more 2020-04

Reinvigorating the Tanzania Volcano Observatory GNSS Network Ol Doinyo Lengai, a frequently active volcano in northern Tanzania, is instrumented with a real-time GNSS network to understand transient behavior and the relationship between volcanism and rifting.

Read more 2020-03

Contributing to Sustainable Farming in Bangladesh with GNSS Farming in coastal Bangladesh relies on polders, low-lying tracts of land enclosed by earthen embankments that protect the land from tidal surges. In a dynamic deltaic environment and a changing climate, the polders are under threat.

Read more 2020-03

UNAVCO Contributes Technical and Educational Expertise to ShakeAlert The USGS, along with partners including UNAVCO, is developing and testing the ShakeAlert System for the U.S. West Coast, including the integration of GNSS data from real-time stations that are part of the Network of the Americas (NOTA). In addition, UNAVCO is leading the development of geodetic educational resources for ShakeAlert.

Read more 2020-02

Supporting Multiple Projects in Nicaragua Fieldwork in Nicaragua conducted in early February 2020 supported three different projects funded by NSF and NASA. The work involved campaign GPS, repairing continuous GPS stations (cGPS), installing a new cGPS station, installing a gas sensor on Masaya volcano, UAS flights on Masaya, and (...)

Read more 2020-02

New Report on Geodetic Infrastructure Highlights Needs to Measure Our Changing Planet into the Next Century The report Evolving the Geodetic Infrastructure to Meet New Scientific Needs highlights five science themes that rely on maintenance and enhancements to the geodetic infrastructure. The most stringent requirements for the accuracy and stability of the terrestrial reference frame are driven by science questions related to (...)

Read more 2020-02

Data Event Response to the January 28, 2020 M 7.7 Earthquake 125 km NNW of Lucea, Jamaica NOTA operates 54 GNSS stations within 1200 km of the January 28, 2020 M7.7 earthquake. These data are processed daily by the GAGE GNSS Analysis Center at Central Washington University and the position estimates used by the GAGE GNSS Analysis Center Coordinator (ACC), Professor Tom Herring of MIT, to calculate station velocities.

Read more 2020-01

Multi-Method Topographic Survey at Lake Agnes Rock Glacier, Colorado The Lake Agnes rock glacier dominates the Lake Agnes cirque, near Cameron Pass in northern Colorado, however, little is known about its kinematics or dynamics. To determine the motion of the rock glacier, UNAVCO supported Colorado State University researchers with two sets of tools that were used simultaneously: terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) and an uncrewed aircraft system (UAS).

Read more 2020-01

Data Event Response to the January 7, 2020 M 6.4 Earthquake 8km S of Indios, Puerto Rico Signals from this event were recorded by 8 GPS/GNSS stations within 300 km of the epicenter operated by UNAVCO that were streaming high rate (1-sps / 1 Hz) data in real time (Figures 2 and 3). These data allowed peak ground displacements (PGD) to be calculated automatically from the displacement traces within seconds of the earthquake (Figure 3).

Read more 2020-01

UNAVCO Announces New President The UNAVCO Board of Directors announces the selection of Dr. Rebecca Bendick as the fourth president of UNAVCO. Dr. Bendick was selected after an extensive recruitment and selection process. The Boulder, Colorado based UNAVCO is a non-profit, university governed consortium dedicated to advancing geoscience research and education through geodesy. UNAVCO operates the GAGE facility on behalf of the National Science Foundation and also receives funding from NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey.

Read more 2020-01

Geodetic Observations in the Northern Costa Rica Subduction Zone The great earthquakes and tsunamis of 2004 (Sumatra) and 2011 (Japan) were wake-up calls that our forecasting skill for these catastrophic events remains weak. Measurement of the slow motions of the Earth's surface near active faults could help to forecast the location and the size of future earthquakes.

Read more 2020-01

RAPID Response to the November 30, 2018 M 7.0 Earthquake 13 km N of Anchorage, Alaska On November 30, 2018 a magnitude 7 earthquake struck just north of Anchorage, Alaska and caused over $75 million in damage to private and public facilities. The earthquake took place in the upper part of a subducting slab where the slab may be bending downwards, and early indications suggest that the event was related to stresses caused by plate bending.

Read more 2019-12

GeoSciFramework: Real-time Analytics and Machine Learning for Geoscience and Hazards Research The GeoSCIFramework project enables geohazards research and ways to improve earthquake, tsunami and volcano early warning systems through real-time analysis using machine learning. The innovative approach provides real-time streaming analytics on continuous data streams from thousands of high-rate geophysical sensors throughout much of North America.

Read more 2019-12

Reviving a Site Just out of Reach: P438 GPS/GNSS station P438 is located on Northwest Island, a small uninhabited island adjacent to Fidalgo Island in the Puget Sound. The site is in a prime location to capture episodic tremor and slip data and monitor ongoing plate deformation in the Cascadia subduction zone. Yet site access is tricky: P438 is only accessible via boat or helicopter.

Read more 2019-11

Join UNAVCO at AGU 2019 Visit our booth, take a short course, and keep up with UNAVCO work through our staff presentations. At our booth, learn more about our instrumentation, data, and educational resources, and pick up some materials for your lab or great geodesy stickers for your favorite water bottle!

Read more 2019-11

Geo-Launchpad Interns at GSA 2019 Geo-Launchpad interns present their summer projects at the 2019 Geological Society of America's annual meeting in Phoenix, AZ.

Read more 2019-10

The 2019 SAGE/GAGE Workshop Our understanding of fundamental Earth processes requires multifaceted investigations that span a large range of temporal and spatial scales. This workshop will focus on cutting edge geophysical results of processes in the solid earth, cryosphere, oceans and atmosphere and will highlight synergies between the SAGE and GAGE communities.

Read more 2019-09

Community Event Response to the July 4, 2019 M 6.4 and July 6, 2019 M 7.1 Earthquakes Near Ridgecrest, California Signals from this event were recorded by 12 GPS/GNSS stations within 71 km of the epicenter operated by UNAVCO that were streaming high rate (1-sps / 1 Hz) data in real time (Figure 2). These data allowed peak ground displacements (PGD) to be calculated automatically from the displacement traces within seconds of the earthquake (Figures 3 and 4).

Read more 2019-07

The Myrtle Grove Subsidence Superstation How do you install a GPS station in a marsh? How about three all in the same place? Installation of the Myrtle Grove subsidence superstation began in August 2016, but planning began well beforehand. The array of three co-located stations in Myrtle Grove, Louisiana, posed particular challenges, as the instruments were installed in a coastal marsh—in which the installation team would sink up to their hips in mud and water.

Read more 2019-05

Final Celebration of the Successes of EarthScope Scientists, community members, National Science Foundation (NSF) staff and representatives of federal agencies gathered in Washington, D.C. May 21-22 to celebrate the successes of EarthScope. EarthScope was an NSF program designed to study the structure and evolution of the North American continent and the processes that cause earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

Read more 2019-05

CONVERSE: Community Network for Volcanic Eruption Response The Community Network for Volcanic Eruption Response (CONVERSE) research coordination network (RCN) brings together a broadly interdisciplinary group of scientists from academia and US federal agencies who reflect the wide range of data, samples, instrumentation and modeling that currently characterizes volcano science.

Read more 2019-05

The Next Generation GPS/GNSS Network: The Network of the Americas (NOTA) The newly designated Network of the Americas (NOTA) incorporates three major networks: the EarthScope Plate Boundary Observatory (PBO), 1,100 stations spanning Alaska, the continental US, and Puerto Rico; TLALOCNet, 40 stations in Mexico; and COCONet, 85 stations spanning the Caribbean.

Read more 2019-04

Subduction Below Extreme Sedimentation, Part 2 - Myanmar Continuing previous work in Bangladesh, Michael Steckler (LDEO) and Keith Williams (UNAVCO) arrived in Myanmar in late October of 2018 to begin the installation of five additional cGPS sites with collaborators. The larger project entails installation of a transect of cGPS stations and seismometers spanning Bangladesh, India, and Myanmar.

Read more 2019-04

Updates on a Polar Network: ANET in the 2018-19 Season POLENET, a multiyear NSF-funded project, has entered its third award phase. The team for the 2018-19 Antarctic season, composed of six people, left McMurdo station for the remote field camp of WAIS Divide on December 13th, 2018. During the six-week deployment, the team installed five new GPS stations on the coast of Marie Byrd Land.

Read more 2019-03

CHORDS Provides Next Generation Infrastructure for Real-time Geoscience Data Services The EarthCube Cloud-Hosted Real-time Data Services for the Geosciences (CHORDS) project aims to simplify access to real-time geoscience data. Through CHORDS portals, scientists can visualize data streams: (1) in samples/min/hour/day, (2) as simple time-series, and (3) via the time-series visualization software Grafana for real-time time-series analysis.

Read more 2019-03

Incorporating Real-Time GNSS Data into the ShakeAlert Earthquake Early Warning System UNAVCO is actively participating in the testing and implementation of the ShakeAlert Earthquake Early Warning (EEW) system for the United States west coast that is operated by the US Geological Survey.

Read more 2019-03

Accessible Earth: Innovative Field Course Increases Options and Accessibility to Geoscience Current trends in US demographics, rising costs of higher education, and hurdles to entry and retention of first-generation students seriously threaten our ability to mitigate future workforce shortages across STEM fields, with geosciences among the least diverse and most at risk. At the same time, it is widely recognized that the geoscience curriculum must be modernized to better prepare the next generation to utilize geoscience data streams to maximally benefit society and ensure a sustainable future.

Read more 2019-02

Studying a Moving Target: Tracking Cryoconite Holes on Canada Glacier Researchers from University of Colorado and Portland State University are using cryoconite holes on Canada Glacier, located in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, to study microbial communities in their natural environment. Cryoconite holes start as small, dirt-filled depressions on the ice surface that melt into the ice, creating a pool of water capped by ice. Within the water, microbial life thrive in summer despite being isolated from the atmosphere and frozen every winter.

Read more 2019-02

A Less Invasive, More Accurate Way to Survey Penguin Colonies Unoccupied aerial systems (UAS) show promise for accurately surveying penguin populations in Antarctica. Two UNAVCO-supported UAS surveys of Adélie penguins this season (2018-19) will lend insight into penguin nesting habits.

Read more 2019-01

Moving at the Speed of Dirt: TLS Used at Slumgullion Landslide Slumgullion landslide, in southwest Colorado near Lake City, is an ideal outdoor laboratory for comparing a variety of techniques used to measure slope displacements and understand landslide kinematics. The “slow” landslide is nearly constantly active, with surface displacements of several centimeters per day measured on some areas of the slide surface.

Read more 2018-12

Subduction Below Extreme Sedimentation – A Multidisciplinary Transect from the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta to the IndoBurma Backarc To gain a better understanding of the underlying fault system and the entire IndoBurman subduction zone, researchers are installing a large broadband seismic array across Bangladesh, India, and into Myanmar. In addition, cGPS has been installed within the array to better determine the surface deformation across the entire system. In Bangladesh the seismometers were spaced at 5-10km to image shallow as well as deep crustal features, and six continuous GPS (cGPS) station were installed along a 100km portion of this array.

Read more 2018-12

Investigating the Effectiveness of Cloud Services for Geodetic and Seismic Data Management UNAVCO and IRIS are in the third year of an NSF EarthCube project called GeoSciCloud that is evaluating the potential of hosting large facility-scale services in the commercial cloud environment (Amazon AWS) and the private cloud (NSF XSEDE Jetstream resources at Texas Advanced Computing Center and Indiana University).

Read more 2018-12

RESESS Interns Presented at AGU UNAVCO's 2018 RESESS interns traveled to Washington, D.C. from December 10 - 14 to present their summer research projects at the 2018 American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting.

Read more 2018-12

Geo-Launchpad Interns at GSA The 2018 Geo-Launchpad interns traveled to Indianapolis, Indiana November 3-5 to present at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America (GSA). This is the first time that the Geo-Launchpad program supported intern travel to a conference and the first time that these particular students had ever presented at a national conference. Front Range Community College provided full funding for all four participants and will do so again for the 2019 cohort.

Read more 2018-12

cGPS and UAS Activities in Response to the 2018 Eruption of Sierra Negra Volcano, Galápagos Archipelago, Ecuador The Sierra Negra volcano on Isabella Island in the Galápagos Archipelago erupted spectacularly in 2005 with lava fountains reaching more than 200 meters high, and a gas/ash plume reaching 15 km altitude. Various types of data collected before, during and after that eruption gave earth scientists a better understanding of volcanic processes, some of which are unique to the Galápagos. After years of slow uplift and weeks of increasing seismic activity, the Sierra Negra volcano erupted once again on June 26th, 2018.

Read more 2018-12

Data Event Response to the November 30, 2018 M7.0 Earthquake, 13km N of Anchorage, Alaska UNAVCO is downloading high-rate 1-sps (1 Hz) data from ~165 GPS/GNSS stations operated by UNAVCO within ~1500 km of the epicenter for a 3-day time window around the event (± 1.5 days). In addition, 5-sps (5 Hz) data will be downloaded from a subset of these stations for a 6-hour time window around the event (± 3 hours). A map of downloaded stations is shown in Figure 2. When downloaded, these data are available from the UNAVCO high rate data ftp site.

Read more 2018-11

Join UNAVCO at AGU 2018 Visit our booth, take a short course, and keep up with UNAVCO work through our staff presentations.

Read more 2018-11

Upgrades to a Global Network: Maintaining the GGN UNAVCO, in collaboration with the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), is responsible for the operations and maintenance of the 57 permanent GNSS stations that comprise the NASA Global GNSS Network (GGN) (Figure 1). The GGN is NASA's contribution to the International GNSS Service (IGS). UNAVCO staff monitor station network connections, ship new equipment to site operators as necessary, and construct new permanent stations as directed by JPL. UNAVCO staff work closely with local collaborators at each station for routine maintenance as well as troubleshooting when data flow is interrupted; they also perform routine field maintenance and upgrades.

Read more 2018-10

Join UNAVCO at GSA Come find us at Booth #706 in Indianapolis at the Annual Meeting of the Geological Society of America. Our booth is staffed by UNAVCO staff from all groups within the organization, as well as by 2018 and alumni interns from our three internship programs.

Read more 2018-10

NSF Awards the Geodetic Facility for the Advancement of Geoscience (GAGE) to UNAVCO Five-year funding authorization for UNAVCO’s proposal to manage geodetic facilities was approved by the National Science Board on July 18, 2018. UNAVCO's service to the geodetic community continues under "Enabling Discoveries in Multiscale Earth System Dynamics: Geodetic Facility for the Advancement of GEoscience (GAGE)". The National Science Foundation Earth Sciences Division, Office of Polar Programs and NASA will continue support for researchers and educators who rely on geodetic networks and instrumentation, data services, and community engagement services.

Read more 2018-09

Monitoring a Shifting Earth … In Seattle The UNAVCO interactive science exhibit, Monitoring a Shifting Earth, is now on display at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle, Washington. PSC receives more than 1 million visitors a year; a significant portion of these visitors are expected to also view the UNAVCO exhibit. This exhibit raises public awareness about earthquake and tsunami hazards of the Pacific Northwest and the geodetic technologies used to measure and monitor them.

Read more 2018-09

Data Event Response to the August 12, 2018 M 6.4 Earthquake 84km SW of Kaktovik, Alaska Signals from this event were recorded by 16 GPS/GNSS stations operated by UNAVCO that were streaming high rate (1-sps / 1 Hz) data in real time (Figures 2 and 3). These data allowed peak ground displacements (PGD) to be calculated automatically from the displacement traces within seconds of the earthquake (Figure 3).

Read more 2018-08

Supporting Early Career Scientists as Educators in Geophysics and Geosciences Eight graduate students attended the Earth Educators' Rendezvous (EER) at the University of Kansas 15 – 20 July, 2018 with support from the GAGE facility. The EER is a conference sponsored by the National Association of Geoscience Teachers (NAGT) focused on supporting educators of all disciplines related to the earth, atmosphere and ocean. In it’s fourth year, the EER draws over 200 educators from universities, two-year colleges, and K-12 institutions.

Read more 2018-08

cGPS Used to Study Slow Slip Landslide From February 12th through 16th, UNAVCO's Dylan Schmeelk and John Galetzka joined UC Santa Cruz professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences Noah Finnegan (PI) and his graduate students Alex Nereson and Colleen Murphy in Oak Ridge in the mountains just east of Milpitas, CA to upgrade continuous GPS (cGPS) monitoring of the slow slip landslide at Oak Ridge Earthflow Observatory.

Read more 2018-05

Maintenance of Continuous GPS Stations in Panama Over two weeks in April 2018, a UNAVCO field engineer traveled with UNAVCO collaborators throughout much of Panama to service previously installed continuous GPS stations (cGPS), including relocation of one station, and the relocation of a GPS antenna at another. This was part of an ongoing project to investigate the complex interactions between the Caribbean, Cocos, and Nazca plates.

Read more 2018-05

Community Event Response to the May 2018 Kīlauea Volcano, Hawai’i Eruption Activity at Kīlauea Volcano on the Big Island of Hawai’i has recently increased. Starting on Monday, April 30, 2018, magma beneath Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō drained and triggered a collapse of the crater floor. Within hours, earthquakes began migrating east of Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō, signaling an intrusion of magma along the middle and lower East Rift Zone. A new eruption commenced in the Leilani Estates subdivision in the lower East Rift Zone on May 3, 2018, following days of increased earthquake activity and ground deformation.

Read more 2018-05

The 2018 UNAVCO Science Workshop: Geodesy Advancing Geosciences and EarthScope: Applications for Science and Society The 2018 UNAVCO Community Science Workshop was held 27-29 March 2018 in Broomfield, Colorado. The UNAVCO Science Workshop provides an opportunity for the UNAVCO community to share their latest science, UNAVCO staff to receive input from the scientific community, and for staff to update the scientific community on available resources. Over 100 university researchers gathered along with federal agency representatives, private industry, and facility staff.

Read more 2018-04

NASA Global Geodetic Network Station Upgrade – Cachoeira Paulista, Brazil The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) operates a global network of over 60 permanent GNSS stations called the Global Geodetic Network (GGN). UNAVCO offers support to the GGN by providing data flow monitoring, troubleshooting, station installation and maintenance, and engineering services to help improve the capabilities and performance of station infrastructure.

Read more 2018-03

The NASA Space Geodesy Project - An Update NASA’s Space Geodesy Project (SGP) was initiated in order to develop and maintain a global network of next-generation space geodetic observing instruments. Core sites around the globe will use three or four of the primary space-geodetic techniques: Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI), Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR), Doppler Orbitography by Radiopositioning Integrated on Satellite (DORIS), and the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS).

Read more 2018-02

Data Event Response to the February 16, 2018 M7.2 Earthquake 37km NE of Pinotepa, Mexico Signals from this event were recorded by 23 GPS/GNSS stations operated by UNAVCO, UNAM and collaborators that were streaming high rate (1-sps / 1 Hz) data in real time (Figures 2 and 3). These data allowed peak ground displacements (PGD) to be calculated automatically from the displacement traces within seconds of the earthquake (Figure 3). Note: figures and findings are preliminary and subject to revision.

Read more 2018-02

Data Event Response to the January 23, 2018 M 7.9 Earthquake 280km SE of Kodiak, Alaska Signals from this event were recorded by 16 UNAVCO GPS stations that were streaming high rate (1-sps / 1 Hz) data in real time (Figures 3 and 4). These data allowed peak ground displacements (PGD) to be calculated automatically from the displacement traces within seconds of the earthquake (Figure 3), with a magnitude derived from inverting the PGDs of M7.8. Note: figures and findings are preliminary and subject to revision.

Read more 2018-01

Geodesy Teaching Resources for Undergraduates: Capturing Student Interest through Critical Societal Issues It can be challenging to feature ever-evolving geodetic methods when teaching undergraduates. At the same time it can be difficult to engage students in geoscience topics that may appear very distant from their lives. The GEodesy Tools for Societal Issues (GETSI) project seeks to address both these challenges by providing teaching materials that feature geodetic data and quantitative skills applied to societally important issues (climate change, natural hazards, and water resources).

Read more 2017-12

Join UNAVCO at AGU 2017 Visit our booth, take a short course, and keep up with UNAVCO work through our staff presentations.

Read more 2017-11

Join UNAVCO at GSA 2017 Visit our booth, take a short course, and keep up with UNAVCO work through our staff presentations.

Read more 2017-10

Recreational Drones as a Platform for STEM Learning Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones, have transitioned from military usage to many beneficial societal applications such as science research platforms, mapping the terrain, creating three-dimensional models of the land surface or of objects, search & rescue, aerial reconnaissance during wildfires, capturing glamor shots of properties, and many other scientific, commercial, educational, and hobbyist applications.

Read more 2017-09

Episodic GPS Data Collection in Panama Over two and a half weeks in June 2017, graduate student Gorki Ruiz from The Pennsylvania State University (PSU), Omar Espinoza and Javier Cornejo from Instituto Geografico Nacional "Tommy Guardia" - Departamento de Geodesia, and Mike Fend from UNAVCO traveled throughout much of Panama to collect episodic GPS data (eGPS) and service previously installed continuous GPS sites (cGPS).

Read more 2017-09

Hydrologic Surface Loading at GAGE GPS Stations UNAVCO’s Geodetic Data Services (GDS) program is releasing new data products based on hydrologic surface loading at Plate Boundary Observatory (PBO) GNSS station sites. Using estimates of surface water mass from global and national land data assimilation systems (GLDAS and NLDAS, respectively, types of environmental models used in climate and weather models), UNAVCO models the expected displacement from these loads at GAGE-processed PBO stations.

Read more 2017-09

UNAVCO Collects High-Rate GPS Data During the 2017 Great American Solar Eclipse A solar eclipse was visible from most of North America on August 21, 2017, with the path of totality spanning from Oregon to South Carolina. UNAVCO collected high-rate 5Hz GPS data from a total of 279 EarthScope Plate Boundary Observatory (PBO) GPS stations, 38 of which were within the path of totally with the rest within an approximately 300km-wide zone extending out to 90% of totality.

Read more 2017-08

Taking Science to the Public: Evaluation of Museum Outreach Now in its fourth year of installation, the Monitoring a Shifting Earth exhibit has been visited by more than 200,000 visitors. The exhibit is located at Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Visitor Center (HMSC), adjacent to the Newport Inlet and less than a mile from the Pacific Ocean in Newport, Oregon.

Read more 2017-06

UNAVCO UAS Completes Survey of Cryoconite Holes on Antarctic Glacier Cryoconite holes are pockets of life completely encased in otherwise barren glacial ice. These features are formed from when dust blown onto a glacier melts a small, largely isolated hole that can function as its own tiny ecosystem. Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) surveys will help to quantify the spatial distribution and size variability of cryocontie communities by collecting orthorectified imagery and feature mapping.

Read more 2017-06

Learn About Data Access with UNAVCO’s New Video Series UNAVCO archives and provides access to a variety of high-precision geodetic datasets reaching back more than 30 years and spanning all seven continents. Data types include not only GPS/GNSS raw data, time series, and velocity vectors, but also imaging data such as synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) data, borehole strain and seismic data, meteorological data, and tropospheric models.

Read more 2017-06

Plate Boundary Observatory Watches Another Episodic Tremor and Slow Slip Event on the Cascadia Subduction Zone An episodic tremor and slow slip (ETS) event occurred from February to April of 2017 in northwestern Washington to Vancouver Island, British Columbia. The event was observed with the EarthScope Plate Boundary Observatory, University of Washington, Central Washington University and the Geological Survey of Canada.

Read more 2017-05

TLS of Topographic Roughness and Sediment on Hillslopes Terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) was used in project support of researchers from the University of Oregon refining sediment transport models in steep terrain.

Read more 2017-03

Join UNAVCO at SSA UNAVCO will be hosting a booth at the 2017 annual meeting of the Seismological Society of America (SSA). Stop by the booth, and keep up with UNAVCO through our staff presentations in the technical sessions.

Read more 2017-03

The NASA Space Geodesy Project – A Next-Generation Space Geodetic Observing Network NASA’s Space Geodesy Project (SGP) was initiated in order to develop and maintain a global network of next-generation space geodetic observing instruments. The network will be comprised of core sites around the globe that utilize four primary space-geodetic techniques...

Read more 2017-02

P278 – Steel Was All That Remained In August and September of 2016, the Chimney Fire burned through 46,000 acres of San Luis Obisbo County near the central California coast. In addition to destroying dozens of homes and structures, the fire also swept over P278 Clarke Mountain, a GNSS station located on a high ridge within the burn zone.

Read more 2017-02

Designing a Power System for Radars in Greenland The UNAVCO polar services team developed a power system for three radar systems in Greenland for the summer of 2016. The radar was to scan, multiple times a day, the calving front of Jakobshavn glacier on the west coast of Greenland, near Ilulissat, and Helheim glacier on the east coast of Greenland, near Tasilaq.

Read more 2017-02

Terrestrial Laser Scanning and Structure from Motion Learning Resources for Students, Instructors, and Researchers Structure from motion (SfM) photogrammetry and terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) are two valuable geodetic methods for obtaining high resolution topographic data for a wide range of applications from hazards assessments to quantifying geomorphic processes. However, sometimes the knowledge needed to implement the technologies can be a barrier. Now an undergraduate teaching module is available online.

Read more 2016-12

Join UNAVCO at AGU 2016 Visit our booth, attend an event, and keep up with UNAVCO work through our staff presentations at AGU 2016.

Read more 2016-11

GPS observations of post-seismic deformation from the 3 Sep 2016, Mw 5.8, Pawnee, Oklahoma, earthquake This project came about quickly after the 3 September 2016, Mw 5.8, Pawnee, Oklahoma, earthquake. It is collaboration between the University of Memphis, University of Oklahoma (OU), and Oklahoma Geological Survey (OGS). The project deployed eight GPS stations around the causative Sooner Lake fault, in order to measure the years-long relaxation of the crust (postseismic deformation) after the September earthquake.

Read more 2016-11

Data Event Response to the 13 November 2016 M7.8 Kaikoura, New Zealand Earthquake In response to the M7.8 earthquake 7.8 earthquake 53km NNE of Amberley, New Zealand on 2016-11-13 11:02:56 (UTC), UNAVCO has processed high rate one-sample-per-second (1-sps or 1 Hz) borehole strainmeter data from all borehole strainmeters in the Plate Boundary Observatory (PBO). The fully processed 1-sps borehole strainmeter (BSM) dataset spanning the time period of this event is now available at http://borehole.unavco.org/bsm/earthquakes/

20161113_Amberley_NewZealand/.

Read more 2016-11

Eruption Response and Network Maintenance in Nicaragua In 21 days, UNAVCO field engineer Mike Fend, Kendall Wnuk of Penn State University, and Allan Morales of INETER visited three active volcanoes and 25 GPS stations. This tally includes both COCONet stations and stations in local volcanic networks in Nicaragua.

Read more 2016-09

Middle School Girls Learn About Geodesy at Mount St. Helens The GeoGirls program, now in its second year, is a five-day science and technology field camp for middle school girls on Mount St. Helens. UNAVCO again supported the program with staff time, introducing the girls to geophysics via the Plate Boundary Observatory.

Read more 2016-09

Summer 2016 Interns Wrap-up UNAVCO hosts three summer internships, each with a different focus: RESESS, GLP, and USIP. This year’s 19 UNAVCO interns brought the total number of interns supported by UNAVCO to over 180 student interns and assistants. At the beginning of August, the majority of the 2016 interns departed their internship location after an exciting and rewarding summer of research, writing, working, and communications training.

Read more 2016-09

UNAVCO Staff Member Receives Prestigious USGS Award UNAVCO Project Manager John Galetzka was a recipient of the 2016 John Wesley Powell Award, a national service award given by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), recognizes an individual or group, not employed by the Federal Government, whose contributions to the USGSs objectives and mission are noteworthy.

Read more 2016-09

Giving Back to Schools in California Every GPS station needs a host, and many stations within the EarthScope Plate Boundary Observatory are hosted by schools. In the first week of April 2016, UNAVCO staff visited four of these host schools near Ventura, California to meet with students ranging from fourth graders to community college students.

Read more 2016-09

Join UNAVCO at GSA 2016 Visit our booth, take a short course, and keep up with UNAVCO work through our staff presentations.

Read more 2016-09

Station Recovery in Haiti From July 10th through July 17th, Renaldo Sauveur and Dr. Steeve Symithe from the Central National de I’Information Géo-Spatiale (CNIGS) and UNAVCO field engineer Mike Fend worked to upgrade and restore communications for COCONet cGPS stations CN09 and JME2 in Haiti.

Read more 2016-09

Geosphere Science—Positioning UNAVCO, Advancing Geodesy: The 2016 UNAVCO Science Workshop The theme of the 2016 UNAVCO Science Workshop, Geosphere Science – Positioning UNAVCO, Advancing Geodesy, brought together over 200 community members in Broomfield, Colorado, 29-31 March 2016. Geodesy is fueling discoveries in increasingly diverse disciplines ranging across all areas of Earth system sciences.

Read more 2016-06

Data Event Response to the 10 June 2016 Mw 5.2 Earthquake 20km NNW of Borrego Springs, California In response to the Mw 10 June 2016 Mw 5.2 Earthquake 20km NNW of Borrego Springs, California on 2016-06-10 at 12:09:02 (UTC) on 2016-04-16 23:58:37 (UTC), UNAVCO has processed high rate one-sample-per-second (1-sps or 1 Hz) borehole strainmeter data from borehole strainmeters in the Plate Boundary Observatory (PBO) and is downloading 5-samples-per-second (5-sps or 5 Hz) data for PBO GPS stations within an 80 km radius around the epicenter of the event.

Read more 2016-06

Installation of CORS cGPS Station in Sitka, Alaska UNAVCO engineers in collaboration with the City of Sitka installed station AKSI in Sitka, Alaska, on the historical Sitka Post Office. The station is part of the National Geodetic Survey (NGS) CORS network that provides GNSS data in support of three-dimensional positioning, meteorology, space weather, and geophysical applications.

Read more 2016-03

Data Available for Winter Storm Jonas For those interested in calculating the effect of snow loading from GPS data, UNAVCO would like to highlight resources available through the UNAVCO archive. GPS data collected through the EarthScope Plate Boundary Observatory and other networks in the footprint of winter storm Jonas with data archived at UNAVCO are available via ftp or through the UNAVCO Data Archive Interface.

Read more 2016-01

Data Event Response to the 24 January 2016 Mw 7.1 Earthquake 83km E of Old Iliamna, Alaska In response to the Mw 7.1 earthquake 83 km east of Old Iliamna, Alaska on January 24, 2016, also known as the Iniskin earthquake, high-rate one-sample-per-second (1-sps or 1 Hz) GPS data are being collected from PBO stations within 400 km of the epicenter for a 7-day period around the event (day of event ± 3 days).

Read more 2016-01

Back to the Mothership: How PBO Data Gets from Everywhere to Somewhere Collecting continuous GNSS data requires enormous investments in planning, hardware, and physical effort. Getting those data back to a central repository for distribution as quickly and reliably as possible presents even more challenges.

Read more 2016-01

New Google Community for UNAVCO Geodetic Data Services Technical News UNAVCO’s Geodetic Data Services (GDS) program has created a new Google Community for technical news. The GDS Technical News Page will feature information of interest to expert users in the geodetic community, and community members are encouraged to join and contribute questions and news items of their own.

Read more 2016-01

Reaching Educators Where They Live How do you make learning relevant? One way to do this is to use examples that are local and familiar to students and park visitors, such as a favorite rock formation or lake that they can visit and to which they have intellectual and emotional attachments. With the GPS data available through the EarthScope Plate Boundary Observatory (PBO), UNAVCO has created a suite of regionally-focused educational and outreach products that can be used in formal and informal education settings.

Read more 2015-12

Join UNAVCO at AGU 2015 Visit our booth, attend an event, and keep up with UNAVCO work through our staff presentations at AGU 2015.

Read more 2015-11

Connect UNAVCO, a New Website Highlighting Connections in Geodesy Connect UNAVCO is a new feature based on semantic web software that links geodetic services and products (such as, people, software, datasets, publications, and more) in efficient and discoverable ways.

Read more 2015-10

Join UNAVCO at GSA Visit our booth, take a short course, attend an event, and keep up with UNAVCO work through our staff presentations.

Read more 2015-10

PBO Collaborative Work with USGS Alaska Volcano Observatory and IRIS on Augustine Volcano, Alaska The 2015 season in Alaska was defined by resource sharing and cooperative work with a number of agencies. The largest collaborative effort was a week-long project based in Homer, Alaska with work on and around Augustine volcano.

Read more 2015-10

Summer 2015 Interns Wrap-up The 18 2015 UNAVCO interns departed Boulder after an exciting and rewarding summer of research, writing, working, and communications training. Hailing from 17 different universities and colleges across the country, the nine RESESS interns, four Geo-Launchpad interns, and five USIP interns joined together for a summer of formal and informal professional development, field trips, and training opportunities.

Read more 2015-10

Dataworks for GNSS Software Enables Regional Data Centers in the Central America and the Caribbean as part of COCONet and TLALOCNet Many governmental and research organizations are increasingly setting up GNSS stations worldwide, and are often open to sharing these data but lack the tools that would support data sharing. UNAVCO developed the Dataworks for GNSS software with NSF funding to the COCONet project to address this need.

Read more 2015-09

UNAVCO Community Leadership Plans for the Future In preparation for the 2018 re-competition of the GAGE (Geodesy Advancing Geosciences and EarthScope) facility, the UNAVCO community and governance held several planning sessions to chart the future needs of the geodetic and broader geoscience community. In September 2014, the National Science Foundation (NSF) sponsored a Community Workshop entitled “The future of PBO in the GAGE Facility (2013-2018) and after EarthScope,” covered in a previous highlight.

Read more 2015-09

Septentrio Chosen as Preferred Vendor for Reference Stations UNAVCO is pleased to announce that Septentrio, Inc. has been selected as the Geodesy Advancing Geosciences and EarthScope (GAGE) Facility Preferred Vendor for next generation GNSS reference station products.

Read more 2015-08

Data Recovery and Field Response to 25 April 2015, Mw 7.8, Gorkha, Nepal Earthquake UNAVCO, working with many partners, went to Nepal after the Gorkha earthquake to recover data, fix GPS stations and help to establish new stations. Early analysis of some GPS data shows basin resonance in Kathmandu. GPS data from the newly integrated Nepal network is available from the UNAVCO archive.

Read more 2015-08

Do You Call Yourself a Geodesist? UNAVCO asked 11 geoscientists at our March 2014 Science Workshop, “Do you call yourself a geodesist?” The answers were diverse and highlight the expanding research opportunities of geoscientists plus the expanding use of geodesy and geodetic tools in other fields of science and engineering.

Read more 2015-07

Mount St. Helens 35 Years Ago and Now The 35th anniversary of the catastrophic May 18, 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens provided the opportunity to share with the public how far volcano monitoring has come in the last three and a half decades, and the role played by the EarthScope Plate Boundary Observatory in maintaining instrumentation on the volcano's flanks.

Read more 2015-06

Summer 2015 Interns at UNAVCO UNAVCO hosts three summer internships, each with a different focus: Research Experiences in Solid Earth Science for Students (RESESS), Geo-Launchpad, and the UNAVCO Summer Internship Program (USIP).

Read more 2015-06

UNAVCO installs COCONet cGPS site CN51 on Sombrero Island, Anguilla In collaboration with the government of Anguilla, UNAVCO installed COCONet cGPS station CN51 on Sombrero Island in May 2015. CN51 increases coverage on the northern edge of the Caribbean plate and is the northeasternmost station in the network.

Read more 2015-06

Introducing Undergraduates of All Majors to Geodesy in California's Eastern Sierra Despite day after day of rain in California's drought, 15 students of various majors are traipsing around the desert in Indiana University's Volcanoes of the Eastern Sierra intro-level field course.

Read more 2015-05

Community Event Response to the 25 April 2015 Mw=7.8 Gorkha, Nepal Earthquake A magnitude 7.9 earthquake occurred in Nepal at 06:11:26 UTC on April 25, 2015. The earthquake occured as the result of thrust faulting on or near the main frontal thrust between the subducting India plate and the overriding Eurasia plate.

Read more 2015-04

UNAVCO Community Science Shared with NSF Director On February 20, 2015 NSF Director Dr. France Córdova and other NSF leadership met with UNAVCO President Dr. M. Meghan Miller at the NCAR Research Aviation Facility at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport in Broomfield, Colorado. The senior management team, select UNAVCO staff, and several early career scientists joined them.

Read more 2015-03

PBO Futures Workshop Final Report The National Science Foundation (NSF) sponsored a Community Workshop entitled “The future of PBO in the GAGE Facility (2013-2018) and after EarthScope,” which was held at the DoubleTree Hotel in Breckenridge, Colorado from September 22nd through 24th, 2014.

Read more 2015-04

Join UNAVCO at EGU Engage with UNAVCO staff and learn about our science support through the UNAVCO Members Reception and UNAVCO staff presentations at EGU.

Read more 2015-04

Low-Cost Additions to the Plate Boundary Observatory for Earthquake Early Warning Between December 2014 and February 2015, UNAVCO installed 10 accelerometers at existing Plate Boundary Observatory (PBO) GPS sites in the San Francisco Bay Area. Accelerometers in combination with high-precision GPS data provide a new interdisciplinary data type. Applied in real-time, this information is an essential input in models for prototype earthquake early warning systems.

Read more 2015-03

UNAVCO Installs COCONet cGPS Site CN01 and Upgrades sites BGGY and CN00 in Antigua and Barbuda During this installation and maintenance trip, UNAVCO collaborated with the Antigua and Barbuda National Office of Disaster Service (NODS), University of the West Indies (UWI) Trinidad, and the US Geological Survey (USGS) to install a new station and maintain two others.

Read more 2015-02

RESESS Interns Present Research at Scientific Conferences This past fall, 15 2014 RESESS interns and RESESS alumni participated in the Geological Society of America (GSA) Annual Meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia and the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in San Francisco, California.

Read more 2015-01

Mount St. Helens Network Maintenance Brings All Stations Online Continuous GPS stations at Mount St. Helens installed in collaboration with the USGS Cascade Volcano Observatory (CVO) help scientists monitor and better understand Mount St. Helens both for risk assessment and for applying new knowledge to other volcanoes worldwide. PBO GPS station maintenance on Mount St. Helens in September 2014 focused on making three stations on the volcano more robust for transmitting data throughout the winter and bringing eight “silent” stations back online.

Read more 2015-01

Workshop to Assess Field Education Support by the GAGE Facility On November 17 and 18, 2014, 21 faculty and researchers interested in incorporating geodetic instrumentation and tools into field education met at UNAVCO in Boulder, Colorado for the Field Education and Support by the UNAVCO GAGE Facility Workshop. The goal of this workshop was to bring together educators who are interested in, or are already actively using, geodesy in a field education context.

Read more 2015-01

Russian GLONASS Global Navigation Satellite System April Outage and UNAVCO The Russian GLONASS Global Navigation Satellite System experienced a ten-hour outage beginning at 21:00 UTC on April 1st, 2014 that affected a significant number of GNSS receivers operated by UNAVCO and our collaborators.

Read more 2014-12

UNAVCO Installs COCONet cGPS Site CN18 on Swan Island, Honduras COCONet cGPS site CN18 was installed on Swan Island, Honduras, and is poised to collect particularly valuable atmospheric and geodetic data because it will provide coverage in a remote part of the world with little data availability.

Read more 2014-12

Join UNAVCO at AGU Visit our booth, attend an event, and keep up with UNAVCO work through our staff presentations.

Read more 2014-12

Workshop on Future Seismic and Geodetic Facility Needs in the Geosciences A 2 1/2 day workshop will be held May 4-6, 2015 to gather community input for the National Science Foundation on the most important scientific questions, research opportunities, and broader impacts that the community will be pursuing in 2018 and beyond, and the seismic and geodetic facility capabilities that will be required to support this research and associated education, outreach, training and workforce development.

Read more 2014-12

Reaching Kids and Their Parents through Hands-on Science Each fall at Super Science Saturday, hundreds of children and their adult escorts descend on Boulder, CO’s NCAR Mesa Lab to learn about science through fun hands-on activities. Super Science Saturday provides UNAVCO an opportunity to participate in a local outreach event in a community we’ve been a part of for 30 years, and to teach kids how to use a familiar technology—GPS, one of UNAVCO’s specialties—to learn about their world and be scientists.

Read more 2014-11

Free and Easy Access to Online Geodetic Data: Using Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) for UNAVCO Data and Metadata Free and open access to scientific data is pivotal to the success of geoscience research worldwide. Digital object identifiers (DOIs) allow data sets to be uniformly cited, making it easier for researchers to find the original source of data in publications and for UNAVCO and the researchers we support to be properly acknowledged.

Read more 2014-11

Monitoring Erosion on a Volcano: High Resolution Topographic Surveys of Mauna Kea, HI Mauna Kea, a dormant 13,800 foot tall volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii, is experiencing substantial natural and human-caused erosion at its summit. UNAVCO is helping Ryan Perroy of the University of Hawaii, Hilo to monitor these erosion rates by providing a baseline high-resolution topographic map of the summit area to quantify natural and anthropomorphic influences. This project will help to establish a habitat suitability model for the Wekiu bug, a rare endemic invertebrate species that is only found on Mauna Kea.

Read more 2014-10

Data Event Response to the 14 October 2014 Mw 7.3 Earthquake 67km WSW of Jiquilillo, Nicaragua In response to the Mw 7.3 earthquake 67km WSW of Jiquilillo, Nicaragua on October 14, 2014, UNAVCO is downloading high-rate GPS data from a total of 25 stations within 1,000 km of the epicenter (Figure 2). One-sample-per-second (1-sps) GPS data were collected for a five-day period around the event (day of event plus two days before and after). Five-sample-per-second (5-sps) GPS data, where available, will also be collected for a 12-hour period (± 6 hours) around the event. These data are available from ftp://data-out.unavco.org/pub/highrate/.

Read more 2014-10

Join UNAVCO at GSA Visit our booth, see a TLS demo, take a short course, attend an event, and keep up with UNAVCO work through our staff presentations.

Read more 2014-10

RESESS Summer 2014 Wrap-up The 2014 cohort of RESESS interns has departed Boulder after successfully completing their research internship summer. Ten interns from ten different institutions across the country participated in a summer full of research, writing, and communications training. Five of the interns were returning for their second year with RESESS and five of the interns participated for the first time.

Read more 2014-09

Data Event Response to the 25 September 2014 Mw 6.2 Earthquake 94km WNW of Willow, Alaska The Alaska Earthquake Center located a strong earthquake that occurred on Thursday, September 25th at 9:51 AM AKDT in the Cook Inlet region of Alaska. This earthquake had a preliminary magnitude of 6.2 and was located at a depth of about 64 miles (103 km). As a response, UNAVCO is downloading one-sample-per-second (1-sps or 1 Hz) data from GPS stations within an approximately 100 km radius of the epicenter, as well as from stations near Anchorage, where shaking was felt.

Read more 2014-09

Data Event Response to the 24 August 2014 Mw 6.0 South Napa Earthquake - 6km NW of American Canyon, California A Mw 6.0 earthquake with its epicenter located 6 km (4 miles) northwest of American Canyon, California and 8 km (5 miles) south southwest of Napa, California, occurred at 3:20 a.m. PDT on August 24, 2014 at a depth of 11.3 km. As a response, UNAVCO is currently downloading data recorded at five-samples-per-second (5 sps) for the full 24 hour UTC day of the event, and one-sample-per-second (1 sps) data for 3 days before and 3 days after the earthquake (7 days total). UNAVCO also produced a fully processed 1-sps borehole strainmeter (BSM) dataset spanning the time period of this event.

Read more 2014-08

Site Upgrades Bring Stations Online in the Dominican Republic During the last part of April, UNAVCO and the Oficina Nacional de Meteorología (ONAMET) upgraded communications on COCONet sites CN06, CN08, and CN27 and Jurisdicción Inmobiliaria (JI) sites BARA, LVEG, and SROD in the Dominican Republic, and brought site CN06 online for the first time since it was installed in August 2012.

Read more 2014-08

UNAVCO Installs COCONet cGPS Sites CN13 and CN14 in the Bahamas Even stainless steel in the Caribbean starts to rust anywhere it has been welded or is in contact with another type of alloy such as aluminum. While the hardware used in the Plate Boundary Observatory works well in temporate climates, COCONet requires hardware better suited to hot, humid, and salty environs.

Read more 2014-08

The RESESS Internship Program Kicks off its 10th Year UNAVCO welcomes the 2014 RESESS cohort! This is the 10th group of RESESS interns and we have had a fantastic kick-off to the summer. Already, the group has survived orientation and leadership training and the interns are digging in on their research.

Read more 2014-07

Reaching Educators in Alaska In March of 1964, a magnitude 9.2 earthquake devastated Anchorage and other communities along the Alaskan coast. Fifty years later, Alaskan museum and park interpretive professionals, naturalist guides, instructional specialists, and K-12 teachers gathered at the USGS Alaska Science Center in Anchorage to participate in one of two separate workshops exploring the region’s tectonics.

Read more 2014-06

UNAVCO Installs COCONet cGPS Site CN21 in Honduras In collaboration with Fausto Ramirez and Oscar Meza of the Honduras Instituto de la Propiedad and Luis Eveline of the Universidad Politécnica de Ingeniería de Honduras (UPI), UNAVCO engineer Michael Fend installed CN21 in San Lorenzo, Honduras.

Read more 2014-06

PBO Featured at EarthScope Symposium and Reception Scientists, funders, and policy makers celebrated the successes of EarthScope's first ten years on May 14 and 15, 2014, in Washington, D.C. The Plate Boundary Observatory (PBO) was featured as one of EarthScope's three major observatories, along with USArray and the San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth (SAFOD). Events included Congressional briefings, a half-day science symposium, and an evening reception.

Read more 2014-06

2014 UNAVCO Science Workshop The bi-annual UNAVCO Science Workshop has continued its tradition of bringing the UNAVCO community together to share advances in geodesy-related research and education. The 2014 UNAVCO Science Workshop was held in Broomfield, Colorado, 4-6 March 2014, with a theme of Celebrating Thirty Years of Geodesy Innovation for Science.

Read more 2014-06

UNAVCO Installs COCONet cGPS Site CN46 in Carriacou, Grenada While most people in the Caribbean were enjoying their time off for Easter weekend, UNAVCO engineers Jacob Sklar and Michael Fend were installing COCONet GPS site CN46 on Carriacou Island, Grenada.

Read more 2014-04

Earthquake and Tsunami Science and Preparedness for Coastal Cascadia Educators Through a grant from the EarthScope Program of the National Science Foundation, the Cascadia EarthScope Earthquake and Tsunami Education Program (CEETEP) offers four-day workshops to foster community engagement in earthquake and tsunami science and preparedness and to encourage collaboration and exchange between formal and informal educators.

Read more 2014-04

Connecting Museum Visitors to Geohazard Science and GPS Technology Monitoring a Shifting Earth is a new science exhibit on display at Oregon State University's Hatfield Marine Science Visitor Center, a Sea Grant Institution in Newport, Oregon.

Read more 2014-04

Data Event Response to the 28 March 2014 Mw 5.1 Earthquake 2 km East of La Habra, California A Mw 5.1 earthquake with its epicenter located 2 km east of La Habra, California, occurred at 9:09 p.m. on March 28, 2014 at a depth of 7.5 km. As a response, UNAVCO is downloading high-rate GPS data from Plate Boundary Observatory stations near the epicenter of the event. PBO borehole strainmeter data are also available.

Read more 2014-04

Community Event Response to the 1 April 2014 Mw=8.2 Iquique, Chile Earthquake A magnitude 8.2 earthquake ruptured the subduction zone off the coast of northern Chile at 11:46:46 p.m. GMT on April 1, 2014. The event ruptured the Iquique seismic gap, a segment of the Nazca-South American subduction zone that last ruptured in 1877.

Read more 2014-04

GSAC Software Makes the Grand Tour In Europe UNAVCO’s Geodesy Seamless Archive Centers (GSAC) software system enables efficient searches for geodesy data at any number of independent data centers. Current GSAC-enabled data centers include sites in Portugal, Italy, Greece, Iceland, France, and Belgium.

Read more 2014-03

UNAVCO Installs COCONet cGPS Sites CN04 and CN47 in Saint Lucia UNAVCO engineers, in collaboration with the University of the West Indies and Saint Lucia’s Ministry of Physical Development, Housing and Urban Renewal, installed cGPS sites CN47 and CN04 in Saint Lucia during a 2.5-week trip spanning February and March 2014.

Read more 2014-03

Maintaining POLENET Sites from the South Pole The POLENET Antarctic Network (ANET) has produced a valuable dataset of GPS and seismic measurements since 2007. These sites endure some of the harshest weather conditions on the planet, and consequently many must be visited at least every two years. The South Pole provides an ideal logistical hub for servicing geophysical stations that are up to 400 miles away.

Read more 2014-03

UNAVCO Installs COCONet cGPS Site CN05 in the Dominican Republic Site CN05 at the Puna Cana International Airport in the Dominican Republic will provide insight into movement within the Puerto Rican Trench, the deepest part of the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean. CN05 was installed by UNAVCO in collaboration with the Oficina Nacional de Meteorología (ONAMET); Geomedición, Instrumentos y Sistemas; Holasa; and the Punta Cana Group of the Punta Cana International Airport.

Read more 2014-02

Tracking Subsidence in Houston UNAVCO is supporting the design and construction of more than 40 new permanent GPS stations in the greater Houston metropolitan area. This network, called HoustonNET, will provide data for a ground subsidence study aimed at reducing flood risk.

Read more 2014-01

UNAVCO at AGU 2013 Thanks for coming to visit us at our new booth, engaging with us through talks and posters, and collaborating with us. In case you missed it, here are some highlights from AGU 2013.

Read more 2013-12

UNAVCO at GSA 2013 Thanks for coming to visit us at our new booth, engaging with us through talks, posters, and workshops, and collaborating with us. In case you missed it, here are some highlights from GSA 2013.

Read more 2013-11

Scanning vegetation and landforms in Montana In August of 2013, UNAVCO supported the second half of a two-part terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) project undertaken by scientists at the University of Montana. The August survey took place on the Bitterroot River in Montana. The goal of the research is to better understand how rivers change due to interactions between water flow, sediment, and vegetation.

Read more 2013-12

Scanning vegetation and landforms in Arizona In April of 2013, UNAVCO supported the first half of a two-part terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) project undertaken by scientists at the University of Montana. The April survey took place on the Santa Maria River in arid northwestern Arizona. The goal of the research is to better understand how rivers change due to interactions between water flow, sediment, and vegetation.

Read more 2013-11

Hands-on Learning at the Hilton Creek Fault in California UNAVCO provided an engineer and TLS equipment to assist with the UC Santa Cruz field camp this past summer in the Eastern Sierra Nevada. In addition to teaching classical field methods, many field camps are now also teaching students how modern tools can help to better visualize complex geological problems.

Read more 2013-06

UNAVCO upgrades COCONet cGPS sites in Jamaica In collaboration with Paul Williams of the University of the West Indies' Earthquake Unit and with transportation from the Jamaican Port Authority, UNAVCO engineers worked to upgrade COCONet sites CN10 and CN11 on the tiny islands of Morant Cay and San Pedro Cay, Jamaica. The sites are two of the hardest hit by corrosion.

Read more 2013-09

Troubleshooting COCONet cGPS sites in Panama A trip to Panama resulted in troubleshooting of two sites. In collaboration with Arkin Tapia, Nestor Vergara, and Eduardo Camacho at the Instituto de Geociencias in Panama City, Panama, site CN28 on Contadora Island was brought back online, followed by a site visit for work on communications and corrosion-proofing at CN20, one of the most corrosion-ridden sites in COCONet.

Read more 2013-08

Arctic Observing Networks: Collaborative Research: Sustaining and amplifying the ITEX AON through automation and increased interdisciplinary observations UNAVCO is supporting the ITEX project with terrestrial LiDAR Scanning (TLS) and GPS survey equipment. The goal of this project is to maintain the existing ITEX AON in Barrow, AK and increase the applicability of the data collected for the greater scientific community.

Read more 2013-10

UNAVCO installs COCONet cGPS site in Trinidad UNAVCO worked in collaboration with personnel at UWI, both in the seismic and surveys and lands departments, to complete the new GPS site in Toco, a small town situated along the remote north east coast of Trinidad.

Read more 2013-10

UNAVCO reestablishes a continuous GPS/MET site on the island of Roatan With assistance from students Jose Eveline, Guillermo Antonio Lopez, Antonia Sarahi Martinez, and Estefania Kury (all of the Universidad Politécnica de Ingeniería (UPI) Tegucigalpa), Honduras, UNAVCO reestablished a continuous GPS/MET site on the island of Roatan.

Read more 2013-10

UNAVCO installs COCONet cGPS site in Aruba By collaborating with the Meteorological Department of Aruba, UNAVCO engineers were able to install another cGPS site in the Caribbean.

Read more 2013-10

Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) monitors life cycle of icy debris fans In 2006, while collecting samples of rock, Bucknell University researchers Craig Kochel and Rob Jacob discovered landforms in the Wrangell Mountains of Alaska that had previously been uncharacterized. These newly discovered landforms were named icy debris fans due to similarities with alluvial fans. An alluvial fan is a fan- or cone-shaped deposit of sediment crossed and built up by streams.

Read more 2013-08

UNAVCO helps incorporate GPS into introductory field course This marks the fourth year that UNAVCO has sent both a real-time-kinematic GPS system and a field engineer to assist with the GPS portion of a Volcanoes of the Eastern Sierra Nevada field course.

Read more 2013-06

The RESESS internship program kicks off its 9th year Aisha R. Morris is excited to join the UNAVCO team as an Education and Community Engagement Specialist, and Director of the RESESS Program. Most recently, Aisha worked in the office of Representative Rush Holt (NJ-12) as the 2011-2012 William L. Fisher Geosciences/American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Congressional Science Fellow. Prior to her AAAS Fellowship, Dr. Aisha Morris was an Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate Postdoctoral Fellow at Syracuse University.

Read more 2013-05

COCONet station installed in Anguilla With assistance from the Anguillan government, UNAVCO installed a continuous GPS/MET site in Anguilla, one of the most northerly of the Leeward Islands in the Lesser Antilles, lying east of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, and directly north of Saint Martin.

Read more 2013-05

COCONet station installed near Anegada Passage Puerto Rico and the northern Virgin Islands define the eastern terminus of the Greater Antilles, which extend eastward from offshore eastern Central America to the Lesser Antilles volcanic arc and mark the boundary between the Caribbean and North America plates.

Read more 2013-05

Three continuous GPS sites constructed in Panama for COCONet UNAVCO staff installed 3 new COCONet continuous GPS/MET sites in Panama, which complement the previously installed CN33 (ca. November 2011) continuous GPS/MET site. A total of 4 new COCONet cGPS and meteorological sites (CN20, CN28, CN33, and CN34) are now operational in Panama.

Read more 2013-04

Characterizing Forest Structure for Snow Prediction using Terrestrial Laser Scanning Seasonal snowpacks are difficult to measure and model in complex forested terrain. These measurements are necessary in order to reliably predict weather, climate, and water resources in much of the western U.S. The interactions between local vegetation structure and climate play a central role in the accumulation and ablation of snow, but it remains challenging to represent snowpack processes and distributions at the scales that land surface models are typically applied.

Read more 2013-04

Strainmeters capture strain transients following the M4.7 March 2013 Anza Earthquake On March 11 2013 a M4.7 earthquake occurred in the Anza section of the San Jacinto fault (SJF) zone. The event was typical for the region, it occurred at a depth of 13.1±0.5 km and the focal mechanism indicated strike-slip motion on an 82° dipping fault.

Read more 2013-04

GNSS station installed on Brown Mountain, South Georgia Island The first continuous GNSS station on South Georgia Island was installed in February 2013 as a collaboration between the University of Luxembourg, the British National Oceanographic Centre, the British Antarctic Survey, and UNAVCO.

Read more 2013-04

Further Terrestrial Laser Scan (TLS) Measurements on Toutle River The Toutle River is a 17.2-mile (27.7 km) tributary of the Cowlitz River in the U.S. state of Washington. It rises in two forks merging near Toutle below Mount St. Helens and joins the Cowlitz near Castle Rock, 20 miles (32 km) upstream of the larger river's confluence with the Columbia River. The river was altered by the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens and subsequent flows of ash and other debris.

Read more 2013-02

Terrestrial Laser Scan (TLS) of Handcart Gulch explores rock glaciers Handcart Gulch, named for the handcarts that Colorado miners used to pull outfits up the steep valley walls, was a rowdy area that reached its peak in 1876-77 with several hundred miners in the area. Today, a cabin and some ruins mark the site. It is also the site of a terrestrial laser scanning project that hopes to shed light on the geological faulting of the region.

Read more 2013-02

UNAVCO uses Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) to examine bluff beneath 12th century castle In the Burggrafenamt district of South Tirol, Italy, a castle sits on a hill, named by the ancestral seat of the Counts of Tirol during the 12th century. The castle has witnessed a range of historical events, through the Habsburg dynasty, the Napoleonic Wars, two world wars, and now embodies its modern role as the South Tirolean Museum of History.

Read more 2013-02

RAPID: Nicoya Earthquake After-event Response (NEAR) 2012 Megathrust earthquakes occur at subduction zones at convergent boundaries, where one tectonic plate is subducted by another. These earthquakes are among the most powerful and destructive natural hazards on the planet.

Read more 2013-02

UNAVCO connects communications with two AfricaArray GPS sites In July of 2012, UNAVCO engineers traveled to both Mongu and Itezhi-tezi, Zambia to upgrade continuous GPS sites by affixing data communication systems. The Itezhi-tezhi GPS site received a BGAN satellite communication system and the Mongu site received a cellular modem. This allows both sites to transmit data on a regular basis to the UNAVCO facility in Boulder, CO.

Read more 2013-01

M7.5 Earthquake 94 km W of Craig, Alaska On January 5th, 2013, at 08:58 UTC, a magnitude 7.5 earthquake shook the ocean floor off the west coast of southeastern Alaska. A tsunami was generated, but the waves were only about six inches above normal and the tsunami warning was canceled. The earthquake was followed by six aftershocks as big as M5.1, and came nearly four hours after the initial quake. Houses shook and items were moved around, but there were no injuries reported.

Read more 2013-01

Delving into the East African Rift System in Three Dimensions During July of 2012, 10 new continuous GPS stations were installed around the Lake Malawi region. Lake Malawi is the southernmost lake in the East African Rift system, located between Malawi, Mozambique, and Tanzania. The third largest and second deepest lake in Africa, it is also the ninth largest in the world. Working in Africa always presents many challenging logistics for large-scale projects and this was no exception.

Read more 2013-01

Exploring arc volcano processes with the Soufriere Hills Volcano, Montserrat In April of 2012, two engineers from UNAVCO conducted a maintenance trip to the Island of Montserrat to service four stations that house continuous GPS systems and borehole strain meters.

Read more 2013-01

Improving Our Understanding of Carbon Sequestration Monitoring with GPS Tim Dixon of the University of South Florida is working to develop a new, integrated approach for monitoring, verification, and accounting of carbon dioxide (CO2) sequestered in deep geologic repositories. Interest in terrestrial carbon sequestration has increased in an effort to explore opportunities for climate change mitigation.

Read more 2012-12

COCONet GPS Network Expansion: Redonda Island Blurb: As part of the ongoing COCONet installation phase, one continuously operating GPS site was installed on Redonda Island in the West Indies of the Caribbean ocean. The island belongs to the nation of Antigua but its nearest neighbor is Montserrat, located 12 miles due southeast.

Read more 2012-11

COCONet GPS Network Expansion: Colombia In August and September of 2012, UNAVCO supported the installation of four new cGPS stations in Colombia as part of the ongoing COCONet installation phase. Three of the new sites are located along the northern coast of the country and one site is on the island of Providencia (belonging to Colombia), situated 140 miles off of the eastern coast of Nicaragua.

Read more 2012-11

The BanglaPIRE Project: Exploring the geologic and hydrologic processes that shape the Bangladesh region Three of the world’s largest rivers, the Ganges, the Brahmaputra, and the Meghna, converge in the country of Bangladesh and dump one gigaton of sediment there annually to form the world’s largest delta (The Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna Delta, or GBMD). This delta overlies the rapidly subsiding junction of three tectonic plates.

Read more 2012-11

UNAVCO provides improved access to SAR satellite imagery UNAVCO has unified access to SAR archive interfaces, allowing researchers to search one database for all available imagery. The new SAR database with geospatial searches allows for more efficient searches and automated downloading, saving time and effort for researchers looking for SAR images.

Read more 2012-11

RESESS Interns Take on the Challenge of Research Imagine doing a summer research project and submitting an abstract to a national meeting in just over two months. This past summer, 17 college students converged in Boulder, Colorado to participate in the RESESS internship and take on this challenge.

Read more 2012-11

PBO Data and Preliminary Ground Motion Measurements from the August 2012 Brawley, California Seismic Swarm A seismic swarm near Brawley, CA, south of the Salton Sea, began on August 26, 2012, at 04:30 GMT (August 25, 21:30 PDT). Over 500 events were recorded by the Southern California Seismic Network by August 29. The two largest earthquakes in the swarm were a M5.3 at 19:31 August 26 (12:31 PDT) and a M5.5 at 20:57 August 26 (13:57 PDT). Many of the events were reported felt across much of southern California. The town of Brawley is located less than 5 km (3 miles) from the swarm, and minor damage was reported.

Read more 2012-09

Community Geophysical Event Response to the 5 September 2012, Mw=7.6 Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica Earthquake On Wednesday, September 5, 2012, at 14:42:07 UTC, a magnitude 7.6 earthquake struck roughly 40 km (25 miles) below the surface of the Earth, 10 km (6.2 miles) ESE of the city of Nicoya, Costa Rica. This earthquake occurred beneath the Nicoya Peninsula of Costa Rica as the result of thrust faulting on the subduction zone interface between the subducting Cocos and overriding Caribbean plates.

Read more 2012-09

TLS survey campaign of Thrihnukagigur Volcano, Iceland In late June of 2012, UNAVCO provided continued support for Dr. LaFemina with a second TLS survey campaign in Iceland. A Leica C10 scanner was used to scan the inner chamber, shaft and surrounding area above the Thrihnukagigur Volcano. Over the course of 7 days, 18 scan positions were occupied and over 500 million points collected. In comparison, previous surveys of the magma chamber using land-surveying equipment produced only 1200 points.

Read more 2012-06

Hydrology at the Base of the Greenland Ice Sheet What role does water play in the movement of the vast Greenland Ice Sheet? This integrated measurement and modeling project is a comprehensive investigation of this very question. Conditions at the base of the glacier will be directly measured in six boreholes drilled to the bed, with two holes at each of three sites. Surface melt and spatial gradients in ice velocity will be quantified to enable detailed comparison between melt water forcing, basal hydrologic conditions, and ice flow dynamics.

Read more 2012-06

EarthScope and UNAVCO host exhibit at 2012 USA Science and Engineering Festival The second USA Science and Engineering Festival took place in Washington, D.C. April 27-29, 2012. Over 150,000 people participated during the 3 day event, with over 3,000 interactive exhibits, more than 100 stage shows and 33 author presentations to explore.

Read more 2012-04

White Sands Dune Migration UNAVCO provided support for Dr. Ryan Ewing's (University of Alabama) first TLS survey campaign to the White Sands National Monument. Scanning was carried out over the course of four days in three separate locations within the monument.

Read more 2012-03

2011-12 Antarctic Season Highlights During the 2011-12 Antarctic field season, UNAVCO deployed 5 engineers, 88 GPS receivers, 3 Terrestrial Laser Scanner (TLS) instruments, and a large volume of ancillary equipment in support of a record 34 PI science projects. Including 2 more field engineer and 14 receiver deployments as part of the POLENET project...

Read more 2012-03

The Polar Earth Observing Network (POLENET) 2011/2012 Field Season The POLENET (Polar Earth Observing Network) project focuses on collecting GPS and seismic data from autonomous systems deployed at remote sites spanning much of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets. GPS and seismic measurements together provide a means to answer critical questions about ice sheet behavior.

Read more 2012-02

Nicoya Peninsula continuous GPS network telemetry upgrades and COCONet network expansion The Nicoya Peninsula continuous GPS network consists of 18 remote sites distributed mostly in the forearc of the Cocos subduction zone in northwest Costa Rica. The network is designed to measure transient surface deformation above the seismogenic plate-boundary interface. The network was established and expanded in several stages beginning in 2006.

Read more 2012-01

Broadband Geodetic and Seismological Response to the Mineral, VA Earthquake In October 2011, engineers from the Plate Boundary Observatory began work on an NSF-funded RAPID project related to the study of the post-rupture crustal relaxation due to the M5.8 earthquake that struck near Mineral, VA on August 23, 2011. The project consisted of the reconnaissance, permitting, construction, and data communications for two permanent GPS stations near Louisa, Virginia, close to the epicenter of the earthquake. UNAVCO field engineers assisted the Principal Investigator with all the components of the fieldwork. The project was completed in November 2011.

Read more 2011-12-12

High Rate Strain and Tilt Data Products Beginning October 2011, UNAVCO will start releasing high-rate (1-sps) processed borehole strainmeter data for geophysical events of special interest, e.g., earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic events or in response to community requests. The high rate strain data set will include areal and shear strain, earth tide plus ocean load time-series, barometric pressure corrections, plus pore pressure and tiltmeter data if they are collected at the site. These new data products will be available from the UNAVCO PBO web page under the Geophysical Event section. The first high rate data sets available are for the M9, March 11, 2011, Tohoku Earthquake and the M6.4, 2011 September 9, Vancouver Island Earthquake.

Read more 2011-11-14

New PBO GPS Velocity Field UNAVCO has released a new realization of the Plate Boundary Observatory (PBO) network GPS velocity field, reflecting data acquired through May 2011.

Read more 2011-08-30

PBO Strainmeters Record the 2011 ETS Cascadia Episodic Tremor and Slip Event A few months earlier than anticipated, the 2011 Cascadia Episodic Tremor and Slip event may be underway. Based on the start time of last year's event, this year's tremor was expected to begin late October 2011. An increase in tremor south of Puget Sound around August 7th, however, and its propagation northeastwards under the Olympic Peninsula over the past 10 days has caused speculation that this is the main 2011 ETS event.

Read more 2011-08-22

Community Geophysical Event Response to the 23 August 2011, Mw=5.8 Virginia Earthquake On Tuesday, August 23, 2011, at 17:51:04 UTC, a magnitude 5.8 earthquake struck roughly 6 km (3.7 miles) below the surface of the Earth, 8 km (5 miles) southwest of Mineral, Virginia. The earthquake occurred within the Central Virginia Seismic Zone, which has produced many small and moderate earthquakes throughout recorded human history in the area, including a magnitude 4.8 in 1875 and a 4.5 event in 2003.

Read more 2011-08

UNAVCO Community Response to the 11 March 2011, Mw=9.0 Tohoku, Japan Earthquake and Tsunami A magnitude 9.0 earthquake occurred at 02:46:23 PM local time on March 11, 2011, near the east coast of Honshu, Japan. Five minutes in duration, it triggered a tsunami of more than 10 m in height, causing immense damage along the northeast coast of Japan.

Read more 2011-03

Caribbean GPS Network to Aid Earthquake and Hurricane Forecasting A proposed network of GPS stations in the pan-Caribbean region will aid the monitoring, understanding, and prediction of earthquakes, hurricanes, flooding, volcanoes, and landslides.

Una nueva red expandida de estaciones de GPS en la región del Caribe va a ayudar con el monitoreo, entendimiento, y predicción de terremotos, tsunamis, huracanes, inundaciones, volcanes, y deslizamientos de tierra.

Read more 2011-01

EarthScope Project: Measurements of Crustal Deformation in the Rio Grande Rift Region The Rio Grande Rift GPS Experiment, funded by the National Science Foundation's EarthScope program, provides a regional enhancement to the broader Plate Boundary Observatory (PBO) network. Its purpose is to measure relative motions at the Earth's surface and determine how the Rio Grande Rift region in Colorado and New Mexico is deforming.

Read more 2011

PLUTONS GPS Installations, Part 3 PLUTONS is an integrative geophysical, geochemical, and geomorphological study involving researchers from many US, Canadian, South American, and British institutions. The project aims to uncover evidence for active mid-crustal intrusion and crustal formation at Uturuncu and Lazufre volcanoes, located in the central Andes.

Read more 2011-11

Haiti GPS Network Following the earthquake of Jan 2010, 6 CGPS stations were installed in key locations around Haiti to measure the after effects and ongoing activity in the region. Of these 6 stations, only 1 was transmitting data back to UNAVCO reliably by the middle of 2011. It was determined from reconnaissance trips by local collaborators that the data transmission issues were due, for the most part, to system failures and one was actually caused by theft of the entire system. With that information in hand, a maintenance trip was deemed necessary.

Read more 2011-11

Geodynamics of Ridge Collision on the Caribbean Plate and Panama Block: Part 2 Network Completion During a two week trip in November 2011, two additional continuous GPS stations were installed to complete a network designed to measure the deformation of the Panama tectonic block. This project is part of ongoing research on the geodynamics of the plate tectonic regiem in Central America. One of these stations is also part of a larger National Science Foundation project called CocoNet.

Read more 2011-11

Carbon Sequestration monitoring using GPS Carbon Sequestration is a process for mitigating the contribution to global warming by capturing the excess CO2 emitted from fossil fuel burning power plants (and other industrial facilities). The CO2 is captured at its source and then injected into depleted oil and gas reservoirs.

Read more 2011-10

GPS as a snow sensor: Doc's Meadow installation Snow is an important component of the climate system and a critical storage component in the hydrologic cycle. However, in situ observations of snow distribution are sparse, and remotely sensed products are imprecise and only available at a coarse spatial scale. While GPS geodesists have long recognized that snow can affect a GPS signal, it was only recently shown that a GPS receiver placed in a standard geodetic orientation can be used to measure snow depth.

Read more 2011-10

Santorini, Greece GPS Network Installations and Upgrades Santorini is one of a group of five islands belonging to a partially submerged caldera in the Aegean Sea. The volcanic system responsible for the formation of the caldera is currently still active and last erupted in 1950.

Read more 2011-09

Denali Dinosaur Dance-floor: Capturing a Mega-tracksite with Terrestrial Lidar for science, education and preservation Over two weeks in August, 2011 a team of scientists from three countries and four institutions collaborated on a field expedition to map, collect samples and identify dinosaur footprints and other trace fossils within a Late Cretaceous age outcrop located in Denali National Park. UNAVCO provided, equipment, logistical, and technical support for collecting a terrestrial lidar data set of the exposed dinosaur "dance floor."

Read more 2011-08

Quantifying fluvial erosion rates on Cascade Volcanoes The goal of the project is to develop data sets that can be used to model erosion and deposition along rivers draining two Cascade volcanoes, Mt. Rainier and Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument. The project has two components, one focusing on processes of sedimentation on Tahoma Creek on Mt. Rainier, the other focusing on processes of erosion on the North Fork Toutle River near Mt. St Helens.

Read more 2011-08

San Jacinto Fault Scanned with a Terrestrial Laser Scanner (TLS) Collecting geologic evidence from major pre-historic earthquakes provides clues to Earth's ancient seismic events. One method of data collection is to dissect a portion of ground across a known active fault, and catalogue, measure, and date the sediment left after each earthquake. Dr. Rockwell and his team are searching for the paleoseismic history of the southern San Jacinto Fault, namely the Clark strand.

Read more 2011-06

Shetland Islands Climate and Settlement Project 2011 Researchers from several colleges in Maine, including Bates College, the University of Maine and the University of Southern Maine, are working together on a multidisciplinary and international 3-year NSF project focusing on the severe climate transformations of the Shetland Islands, the most northern of the Scottish Isles.

Read more 2011-06

Mt. Pinatubo Terrestrial Laser Scanning Mt. Pintaubo (Philippines) erupted in 1991 and deposited up to 6km cubed of pyroclastic material in the drainage basins of the volcano. One of these drainages, The Pasig Potrero, is a river system that flows off the eastern flank of the volcano. 14km downslope of the summit crater, the river expands into a wide, braided alluvium over half a kilometer in width.

Read more 2011-06

First CocoNET Continuously Operating GPS Station Installed COCONet seeks to understand the factors that control earthquake and hurricane hazards by adding 50 high-precision permanent GPS stations to 50 existing ones. These instruments are able to detect millimeter changes in the movement of Earth's crust and atmospheric water vapor that helps predict the path of hurricanes.

Read more 2011-06

Geodynamics of Ridge Collision on the Caribbean Plate and Panama Block During a three week trip in May 2011, a team consisting of members from Penn State University (PSU), the Instituto de Geociencias at the Universidad de Panama (IGC), and UNAVCO constructed four permanent GPS monuments with power and telemetry systems. Additional reconnaissance for three or four new monuments was completed for a future trip.

Read more 2011-05

Volcanic Flank Deformation and Stability: Arenal Case Study - Facility Highlights 2011 The Arenal Volcano, located in north-western Costa Rica, about 90 km northwest of San José, has been one of the ten most active volcanoes in the world until recently. Measuring 1,633 metres (5,358 ft), it is conically shaped with a crater spanning 140 metres (460 ft). As one of the youngest and historically most active volcanoes of all the mountains in Costa Rica, it had remained largely unexplored until the 1930s, with the first documented expedition taking place in 1937 to reach the summit.

Read more 2011-03

Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) Surveys in Everglades National Park Terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) surveys were conducted in March 2011 at four LTER (Long Term Ecological Research) study sites in Everglades National Park. TLS measurements are used to construct the vegetation structure and above ground biomass in 4 disparate vegetation communities. The vegetation community is defined by mangrove development and taxonomy at the site.

Read more 2011-03

Antarctic Program Support 2010-2011 During the 2010-11 Antarctic field season the UNAVCO polar group supported an unprecedented 33 individual PI-based science campaign projects. One hundred twenty receivers and 28,000 pounds of supporting gear was sent to the continent for campaign support, including thirty five new NetR9 systems and twelve netR8's. Nineteen of the NetR9 receivers remain on the ice to support long term data collection at the Whillans Ice stream (WISSARD) and the Byrd Glacier.

Read more 2011-02

POLENET 2010/11 Four continuous GPS stations were installed as part of the POLENET Antarctica network during the 2010/11 field campaign. Three planned stations remain uninstalled due to inclement weather in West Antarctica, and one station remains uninstalled due to lack of suitable bedrock site in the target area.

Read more 2011-02

Join UNAVCO at the 2011 AGU Fall Meeting The AGU Fall Meeting is expected to draw a crowd of over 18,000 geophysicists from around the world. The Fall Meeting provides an opportunity for researchers, teachers, students, and consultants to present and review the latest issues affecting Earth, planets, and their environments in space. This meeting will cover topics in all areas of Earth and space sciences.

Read more 2011-11

UNAVCO Hosts Workshop for Undergraduate Reserach Internship Leaders Leaders of NSF-funded internship programs (called "Research Experiences for Undergraduates" (REUs)) in the Geosciences Directorate gathered together in San Jose on October 26th and 27th, 2011, for a workshop.

Read more 2011-11

Drilling into the San Jacinto Fault The Plate Boundary Observatory (PBO) worked hard in the fall of 2010 to install instrumentation in deep boreholes in the San Jacinto Fault area of southern. The area of focus was in the region of the town of Anza, located roughly halfway between the Salton Sea and the city of Riverside, California.

Read more 2010-12-20

PBO Responds to Magnitude 8.8 Chile Earthquake A magnitude 8.8 earthquake occurred on February 27th, 2010 at 3:34 AM local time (06:36 UTC) off the coast of the Maule region of central Chile (Figure 1). Intense shaking lasted for about three minutes and a tsunami generated in the Pacific Ocean.

Read more 2010-05-16

New EarthScope Airborne LiDAR Data Products from California and Washington State Released in January 2010 New EarthScope airborne LiDAR data products from California and Washington state were announced in January 2010. With this release, DEM tiles and KML files from all southern and eastern California targets are now available, including faults in the Mojave (Lenwood, Helendale, Calico, Blackwater), eastern California (Panamint, Tin Mtn, Mud Hills, Hunter Mtn, Owens) and San Cayetano.

Read more 2010-05-04

Yellowstone Earthquake Swarm Observed by PBO Strain and Seismic Network Beginning Jan 17th, 2010 at about 1:00 PM (MST) a significant swarm of earthquakes started in the Yellowstone area located about 16 km northwest of Old Faithful. According to the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory (YVO), "swarms have occurred in this area several times over the past two decades." As of Feb 5th, 2010 there have been 1778 recorded events, with the largest single event having a magnitude of 3.8 and the cumulative magnitude of the swarm near magnitude 4.4.

Read more 2010-03-05

Gorda Earthquake Recorded in PBO GPS 15-second Time Series The January 10, 2010 M6.5 Gorda earthquake offshore California's Cape Mendocino occurred within 50 km of four GPS stations in the Plate Boundary Observatory (PBO) network. Static processing of data from these sites by the PBO analysis centers and the US Geological Survey has revealed up to 1 cm of primarily eastward displacement of these sites.

Read more 2010-02-26

PBO GPS Stations 'Capture' Magnitude 6.5 Earthquake, Northern California On Jan 9, 2010, a Magnitude (M) 6.5 earthquake occurred offshore of Northern California ~ 30 miles WSW of Eureka, CA (Figure 1). As reported by the USGS, the event occurred within the Gorda Plate on a near vertical fault plane oriented ~ N 47 E.

Read more 2010-02-18

Borehole Strainmeters Observe M4.9 Baja Earthquake The Borehole Strainmeter (BSM) stations in Southern California observed an interesting sequence of earthquakes located in the Baja region on 12/30/2009. As with previous larger magnitude events there are smaller but with visible areal and shear strain signals.

Read more 2010-02-07

Akutan Island GPS Update The tiny Aleutian village of Akutan, perched precariously under Akutan volcano, hosts one of the most important data telemetry sites in the entire Plate Boundary Observatory (PBO) network. Data from 18 stations converge in this village where they are uploaded through the Internet to the PBO Archive in Boulder.

Read more 2010-01-28

Summer Internship a Success Imagine having the chance to do mini grad school while still an undergraduate and doing it with extra support. In the RESESS internship this summer, college students did geoscience research with lots of encouragement from mentors and peers. Research topics ranged from looking at earthquake-triggered landslides to finding geologic faults to looking at zircons affected by a huge asteroid impact.

Read more 2010-11

UNAVCO Presents LiDAR Demonstration on Capitol Hill UNAVCO's David Phillips gave a Terrestrial LiDAR Scanning (TLS) demo on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, as part of the 15th Annual Science-Engineering-Technology Congressional Visits Day (CVD) and LaserFest Reception. Phillips performed LiDAR scans of several congressional representatives and other attendees at an evening reception on Wednesday, April 28, 2010.

Read more 2010-04

Teaching Geodesy in the 21st Century - An "On the Cutting Edge" and UNAVCO Workshop In March of 2010, UNAVCO Education and Outreach staff and collaborators held a workshop to help college-level teachers incorporate geodesy and new teaching techniques into their courses. Teaching Geodesy in the 21st Century - An On the Cutting Edge - UNAVCO Workshop, drew sixteen enthusiastic and engaged professors, teachers, a post doc, and graduate student from around the country to Boulder, CO.

Read more 2010-04

UNAVCO Hosts Online GPS Workshop for Faculty in Texas Using online tools, UNAVCO Education Specialist Shelley Olds facilitated a three-hour workshop entitled GPS Geodesy as Windows on Earth: Discoveries using GPS and other Geodetic Techniques on February 3, 2010 during the Earth and Space Science 4X4 series of workshops provided by the Region 12 Education Center in Central Texas.

Read more 2010-02

In the News: UNAVCO Community Science is 'What's Hot' Recent tectonic activity around the world has sparked a rise in news coverage regarding the UNAVCO science community. We'd like to take this opportunity to remind you how to stay in touch with UNAVCO news. We update the UNAVCO Newsroom with recent articles as they come in.

Read more 2010-01

Join UNAVCO at the 2010 AGU Fall Meeting The AGU Fall Meeting is expected to draw a crowd of over 18,000 geophysicists from around the world. The Fall Meeting provides an opportunity for researchers, teachers, students, and consultants to present and review the latest issues affecting Earth, planets, and their environments in space.

Read more 2010-12

Cascadia Project Recognized in "100 Recovery Act Projects" Report The National Science Foundation's Earth Sciences (EAR) Division received $5M in facility-related investment as a part of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, or ARRA. Some of this is being awarded to UNAVCO to upgrade the communications at GPS sites in the Pacific Northwest.

Read more 2010-10

The Scientific Value of High-Rate, Low-Latency GPS Data; A White Paper [PDF] Ongoing upgrades of western U.S. GPS networks to high-rate, low-latency data transmission capabilities has drawn attention to the interest that the scientific community has in these data. GPS provides an essential complement to other geophysical networks (e.g. seismic, strain, gravity) because of its high precision, sensitivity to the longest period bands, its ease of deployment, and its ability to make measurements of displacement that are local to global in scale.

Download PDF » 2010-09

Community Geophysical Event Response - Mw=8.8 Chile Earthquake Feb. 27, 2010 UNAVCO operates the NASA/GGN GPS station near Santiago (SANT), which is a high rate station set to log at 1 Hz (Fig. 12). SANT is located on the grounds of NASA's Santiago Tracking Station, 38 Km North of Santiago, Chile.

Read more 2010-02

Community Geophysical Event Response - Mw=7 Haiti Earthquake 1/12/2010 In response to community requests after the Mw=7 Haiti Earthquake 1/12/2010, UNAVCO has compiled data sets and is preparing campaign GPS and TLS hardware for anticipated deployment to the Haiti region.

Read more 2010-01

TLS Survey of Fourmile Canyon Wildfire Captures Post-fire Terrain Changes A wildfire occurred in Fourmile Canyon near Boulder, CO in September 2010. The fire provided scientists a rare opportunity to study the geomorphic processes that occur soon after large wildfires. Researchers from the US Geological Survey and the University of Colorado in Boulder, employ a terrestrial laser scanner (TLS) to map micro-scale geomorphic features within a small watershed in the burn-zone.

Read more 2010-12

PLUTONS Project (Part II) UNAVCO finished up its second round of field support for the PLUTONS project in early November of this year. PLUTONS is a collaborative effort involving The University of Alaska Fairbanks, Cornell University, Montana State University, Oregon State University, The University of Alberta, University of Bristol, UC Santa Cruz, and multiple organizations from Chile and Bolivia.

Read more 2010-11

GPS campaign of East African Rift Zone A GPS survey of the East African Rift Zone in Tanzania occurred over three weeks in August 2010. The project involved researchers, staff and graduate students from Purdue University (USA) and Ardhi University in Tanzania, with equipment, logistic and field support from UNAVCO.

Read more 2010-08

Goddard Geophysical and Astronomical Observatory UNAVCO Facility personnel traveled to Goddard's Geophysical and Astronomical Observatory (GGAO) located in Greenbelt, Maryland in order to setup two temporary GPS campaign systems over known marks as construction was commencing on the area that will be home to the next generation VLBI antenna.

Read more 2010-07

QUIN IGS/GGN Station Maintenance The GGN station located in Quincy, California recently went offline and a site visit was needed in order to restore its internet link. The station is accessed through the Mount Hough Ranger Station in Plumas County. The station is located on top of a hill, which can only be accessed through a locked gate which is shared with the Plumas County Repellars.

Read more 2010-06

PLUTONS Project The PLUTONS project is a NSF funded collaborative study including researchers from Cornell University, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Montana State University, Bristol University, UC Santa Cruz, Oregon State University, and the University of Alberta.

Read more 2010-04

St. Helena GNSS Station The St. Helena Island Meteo office is now home to a permanent GNSS station on the island. The station is providing a one second stream of GPS + GLONASS data on the newly constructed pillar monument. The installation of this station was a collaborative effort between NASA-JPL, UNAVCO, SEGAL (UBI,IDL) Portugal, and the St. Helena Meteo office.

Read more 2010-03

Brewster (BREW) GGN Station Maintenance Starting in 2007, the GGN station located in Brewster, Washington underwent a series of equipment upgrades including: installation of an Ashtech receiver running the latest firmware, CQ00, and installation of a new 2U rackmount computer running Fedora 4.

Read more 2010-11

Africa Array GPS Network Africa Array, initialized in 2004, is a project that aims to establish research and training programs in the geosciences for Africans, within Africa. The continent is rich in mineral, petroleum, and geothermal resources and demand for trained geoscientists to manage these resources is growing. However, this need is not being met.

Read more 2010-09

QUIN IGS/GGN Station Maintenance II The GGN station located in Quincy, California (QUIN) continued to exhibit communication problems after a site visit earlier this summer where it was determined that the pole supporting the dish was not sturdy enough and needed to be replaced. During this most recent visit, a new Hughes DW7000 VSAT system was installed in order to restore communications to the station.

Read more 2010-07

IGS Meeting 2010 During June 28 - July 2, 2010 the Newcastle University geodesy group hosted approximately 200 participants in the International GNSS Service (IGS) Workshop 2010 and the COST Action ES0701 Vertical Rates Symposium. The Workshop focused on the application and status of current IGS operations and possibilities for future improvements.

Read more 2010-07

SMAP Validation Project The SMAP (Soil Moisture Active & Passive) Validation project is funded by NASA with collaborators from the University of Colorado at Boulder and UCAR. The purpose of the SMAP Validation project is to provide an independent means to validate the results of the SMAP satellite mission using GPS signals received at ground-based sensor sites.

Read more 2010-05

Haiti Earthquake Response GPS Network PI Eric Calais acquired NSF RAPID funding immediately after the January earthquake in Haiti to conduct a GPS campaign in Port-Au-Prince and other towns in the region of the main fault. UNAVCO received part of this funding to provide equipment and engineering support for the installation of six permanent, continuously operating, GPS stations in Haiti (the first of which Calais installed