Quarterly Report to the Harry Reid Center

UCCSN-DOE Cooperative Agreement

Task 12: Seismic Monitoring

PI: James N. Brune

UNR Seismological Laboratory

September 2000

 

 

 

Progress:

 

During this reporting period (Jul-Sep 2000), we have maintained seismic operations under the QA procedures which have been established with the HRC.

 

We have completed installation and checkout of the strong-motion sensors at the ten planned sites.  They are currently set to trigger whenever the associated seismometers at the site trigger.  Calibrations are performed daily to ensure functionality and accuracy of the data.

 

We have operated with the new software program for receiving the raw seismic monitoring data for nearly 3 months and have noted a significant increase in reliability of our data collection.

 

We have finished revising a draft of a report on the FY98-99 seismicity in the vicinity of Yucca Mountain.  This major report covers the past two years in detail, plus a reexamination of data for previous years for tectonic implications.

 

The EA for installing seismographs in Death Valley National Park completed public review period in August.  The Park Superintendent is conducting a final review of the proposal and public comments. 

 

A strong-motion site visit was performed in August.  All stations are functioning properly.  Data was collected from all instruments. No significant earthquakes were recorded since the previous site visit.

 

We have completed the revision of the IP's that control our seismic monitoring work with the network during this past quarter.  This revision accommodates our transition to the Antelope recording system.

 

We have, with the aid of HRC, closed the one deficiency report that arose from the May 2000 audit.

 

 

 

 

Problems:

 

The backlog of event location is now approximately 20 days behind real time.  This represents some reduction from the previous quarterly report, however.

 

The installation of the new station (see "Plans" below) depends on release of equipment funds by HRC.  We were asked this past summer to identify equipment items that were needed by November, and approximately $22K needed for the new station was not identified at that time, although it was in our original budget.

 

 

Plans:

 

Permit application for one additional permanent seismic station has been approved by the BLM.  We will install digital seismic equipment at this site south of Yucca Mountain in the near future.

 

We plan to continue to decrease the backlog of seismic event processing during the next quarter.

 

We will validate new software versions of 4 major programs during this coming quarter.  Changes are mostly related to Y2K compliance for 3 of them, and the fourth is a routine upgrade to a new version.

 

We will begin to review the FY2000 (Oct. 1999 to Sep. 2000) seismicity catalog during the coming quarter and finalize that data prior to report drafting.