Quarterly Report to the Harry Reid Center

UCCSN-DOE Cooperative Agreement

Task 12: Seismic Monitoring

PI: James N. Brune

UNR Seismological Laboratory

Report Period: 01/01/2002 – 03/31/2002

Progress:

During this reporting period (Jan.-Mar. 2002), we have maintained seismic operations under the QA procedures which have been established with the HRC. Data collection has been above 99.5% overall. Strong-motion stations (9 TerraTech recorders) were visited, data downloaded, and maintenance performed. A number of field repairs were performed in this quarter. Minor changes have been made in software at the recording lab to improve recording reliability.

The draft of the FY01 seismicity report was finished in March and is under internal review. The summary report on the seismic parameter “kappa” is still in progress.

At the end of this quarter, we have completed analyzing the earthquakes in the YM vicinity through February 6. Completion of analysis on a delayed basis is acceptable because the entire set of station triggers is reviewed within 2-3 days and because all events larger than roughly M 2 are always analyzed within 2-3 days.

All of the five software programs addressed in NCR UNR-01-0027 have been entered into the Software Configuration Management, as Level 3 software. This closes the NCR on this nonconformance.

Instrumentation (seismometers and recorders) has been ordered for the three tunnel seismic station installations. An instrumentation order for the three wells on the pad of the proposed Waste Handling Building is nearly finalized. A strong-motion instrument has been relocated from Solitario Canyon to the ESF pad. The instrument is in operation.

Approval of the two Death Valley seismic stations was received, and both stations have been installed. As of this date, only one (Lees Camp) is sending data because a relay antenna still must be installed on Rogers Peak in Death Valley National Park for the other station.

The project to transcribe raw digital seismic data previously submitted to the RPC on 4-mm tapes to DVD media has been completed, resulting in 179 DVD’s. Transcription of the older data depends on vendor completion of purchase orders to move data from old 9-track tapes to 4-mm tapes. About 120 such 9-track tapes have been processed, and the 4-mm data has been moved to hard disk.

We coordinated with Los Alamos Labs on selecting two seismograph sites in the ESF. The stations will be broadcast on the fiber to a central data management computer in the Los Alamos data shack. Timing issues related to transmitting acceptable GPS signal along the fiber have been solved and will be implemented for the ESF stations.

We met with Harry Reid Center hydrologists to discuss the prospects of incorporating well monitoring data into the real-time telemetry system operated by UNR. We also met with LLNL and UNLV engineers in planning for a potential micro-earthquake deployment near the ESF. This is intended to establish base-line data for ESF performance related issues.

Problems:

We have arranged, after lengthy preparations, to have our technicians travel under escort on NAFB the week of April 8-12. Under Task 12, we have two stations to maintain on NAFB. The current arrangement is hardly workable in the case that one of these stations goes down and needs repair or in the case that we wanted to deploy instruments on NAFB after a significant earthquake in the Yucca Mountain vicinity. We would like to have the time between our recognizing a need to travel on NAFB and the actual trip be just a few hours in the case of monitoring aftershocks.

Status of Funds:

As of the end of March, we are roughly 20% behind in our spending on the contract, based on a uniform level of expenditures throughout the year. Significant equipment orders are soon to be placed, bringing that category up.

Plans:

We will continue work on the compendium report of NSL work on the seismic parameter kappa. Actual delivery time depends on the downstream schedules for other YMP participants.

We will submit the completed set of DVD’s to the Records Processing Center for the 1995-2001 refraw data. We will begin the transfer of the older analog network data to DVD’s this quarter.

We will take delivery on equipment to be installed in the tunnel and on the pad and complete bench testing of it in this quarter.

We will send out the FY01 seismicity report in this next quarter for formal review. Due to the relatively low level of seismic activity within the monitoring network for FY01 and the fact that the report covers very little new material, we anticipate submitting a final before the end of this next quarter.