Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology
Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology
Earthquake-Related Data Products in Bogotá, Colombia, was supported by NSF’s Earth Sciences Division. This ASI followed a Data Management Workshop and engaged participants who have responsibilities that extend to providing more complete information about the earthquakes that they already detect and locate. The HypoDD algorithm was used with network generated parametric data and high-precision delay-time measurements from correlated seismograms to compute high resolution event locations. In addition to retrospective re-analysis of complete catalogs, the presentations also outlined real-time double-difference algorithms in routine monitoring. Participants also computed centroid–moment tensor solutions using regional waveform data sets that they assembled during the Data Management Workshop. Applying what they had learned about instrument response and correction, the participants computed broadband synthetic seismograms and calibrated velocity structure and Green’s functions.
Points of contact from member institutions of the Alliance for Middle America Seismology (ALMAS) were invited to attend the student presentations on the concluding day of the Advanced Studies Institute on Site Response and then continue in Santo Domingo for a two-day meeting to draft plans for future activities. The participants prepared a meeting report that outlines concepts for three projects that could be undertaken cooperatively among ALMAS member institutions over the next few years.
Bringing New Tools and Techniques to Bear on Earthquake Hazard Analysis and Mitigation in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, was the first IRIS event to combine a short course with field work for data acquisition. This Advanced Studies Institute was partly funded by the NSF/OISE PASI program and designed to enable early-career scientists to begin collaborating in frontier seismological research. To address this broad goal, we drew participants from a dozen different countries of Middle America. The specific objective was to develop understanding of the principles of earthquake hazard analysis, particularly site characterization techniques. Participants broke into small teams to acquire data, analyze it on their own computers, and make presentations to the assembled group describing their techniques and results. The teams quickly learned to collect high-quality data for several methods of analysis, determined the depth of a disaggregated layer known to underlie near-surface limestone terraces, and discovered important variations resonance period across Santo Domingo.
Determining Lithospheric Structure Using the Joint Inversion of Receiver Functions and Surface Waves was an IRIS Advanced Studies Institute in Kuwait City, Kuwait. The receiver function method has proven successful at using the recordings of teleseismic earthquakes to model the timing of reverberations in the crust and upper mantle due to major seismic discontinuities directly below the recording stations (e.g. basement, Moho). Combining receiver functions with information from surface waves allows us to improve our estimates of crustal velocities and, correspondingly, the depths to the discontinuities, providing a better overall image of the lithospheric structure.
Earthquake Location: Recent Developments, Challenges and Opportunites and Double Difference Techniques for Earthquake Location was an IRIS Advanced Studies Institute in Bangkok, Thailand. The topics covered included
New Frontiers in Seismological Research: Sustainable Networks, Earthquake Source Parameters, and Earth Structure was an IRIS Advanced Studies Institute in Quito, Ecuador. This Institute focused on strategies for developing and maintaining modern seismological observatories and exploring recent advances in the analysis of seismological data in support of basic research, education, and hazard mitigation. Designed to engage graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and new faculty from across the Americas in an interactive collaborative learning environment, the Institute’s broad objectives included developing an understanding of the principles of sustainable network operations; promoting open access and data exchange within and between countries in support of research, education, and hazard mitigation; and examining recent advances and current challenges in characterizing earthquake sources and imaging Earth structure.
At a special session at the SSA Annual Meeting in Memphis, Tennessee that was organized by IRIS, John Filson and Steve Malone led plans for a community initiative to develop a publication based on 21st century seismological practices that would be useful to government decision-makers in developing countries.
Nearly 100 scientists, planners and development experts met at Geophysical Hazards and Plate Boundary Processes in Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean, an IRIS-organized workshop to build seismoloogical collaboration and capacity. Meeting in Heredia, Costa Rica, workshop participants outlined concrete strategies to develop and sustain seismological capacity in Middle America. The event was made possible by support from the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the American Geophysical Union.
IRIS organized a symposium at the AGU Meeting of the Americas in Foz do Iguassu, Brazil.
In cooperation with the Congressional Hazards Caucus Alliance, IRIS helped to organize a Congressional briefing about What we can learn from the Hatian Earthquake. The briefing covered the background of earthquake research and prediction in Haiti and the Caribbean, potential future seismic activity, risk mitigation, and the prospect of early warning systems. The discussion also included rebuilding earthquake-resistant structures, building codes, and how they contribute to lives lost or saved.
IRIS collaborated with multiple government, non-government, academic and private organizations from the U.S., Haiti, and other nations on a two-day interdisciplinary dialogue at the University of Miami on How Science and Engineering Can Inform Haiti Reconstruction. Key Findings of the Workshop were addressed at the "International Donors' Conference towards a New Future for Haiti" held in New York City.
In 2008, the NSF Office of International Science and Engineering and Division of Earth Sciences jointly funded IRIS to convene a workshop on transitioning networks of earthquake monitoring stations in developing countries into fully sustainable networks of advanced seismic observatories. Held in conjunction with the Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in February that year, the workshop brought together key members of the IRIS community in the US and in Southeast Asia, South America, and Middle America to build strategies for transitioning networks of earthquake monitoring stations in developing countries into fully sustainable networks of advanced geophysical observatories. The Workshop Report summary recommendations were that
