Quarterly Report to the Harry Reid Center

UCCSN-DOE Cooperative Agreement

Task ORD-FY04-006: Seismic Monitoring

PI: James N. Brune

UNR Seismological Laboratory

Report Period: 10/01/2004 – 12/31/2004

Progress:

During this reporting period (Oct.-Dec.2004), we have maintained seismic operations with 29 real-time SGBDSN stations under the QA procedures that have been established with the HRC. Network uptime has been 99.9% over the three months.

We have completed analysis of the earthquakes in the YM vicinity through September 30, 2004. (FY2004). The largest earthquake which occurred in FY2004 within the SGBDSN monitoring area was apparently only M 2.8, making this a year of abnormally low seismicity.

A paper on the detection threshold of the SGBDSN was published in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, V. 94, No. 6.

The validation of the kappa determination software was completed in December. The SDR for the program SEISOPTREMI is in progress. Software qualification reports ((LLR) on two programs (DB2PHS and ARC2DB) have been submitted – the former is approved. A high-level software qualification SDR has been completed for MLCALC, and we are now scheduling the vaildation.

Final preparations for data telemetry at Skull Mountain were completed the week of Jan. 3-7. This will enable us to receive the borehole accelerometer and ESF tunnel data in real time.

The data collection system for UZ-16 has undergone nearly all required testing before installation.

Problems:

The mode of delayed funding for the start of FY2005 has impacted us somewhat; we have not, for instance, begun ordering equipment in our FY2005 budget.

The kappa software QA effort is behind schedule and has impacted our delivery schedule for this report (originally 9/30/2004).

The data assessment exercise for the borehole accelerometer report has caused this report to be delayed.

We have experienced numerous and prolonged power outages for our tunnel and borehole recording in the last part of 2004. Although we don’t question the necessity of these and even have battery power which lasts for about 5 days, we point out that our exposure to the possibility of failing to record a significant seismic event should be a concern to the project.

Status of Funds:

As of 12/31/2004, we had expended $319K of FY2005 funds on Task 6. There were also FY2004 funds which were left over on September 30, and we have expended those.

Plans:

In the next quarter (Jan.-Mar., 2005) we plan to request approval for the 3 sites above the 3 ESF tunnel installations. We plan to install the recording equipment at UZ-16, hook up geophones in that well, and conduct a shakedown of the recording system. We plan to start transmission of real-time data from the tunnel and pad boreholes by possibly the end of January.

We will complete and deliver both the report on the FY2003 seismicity in the vicinity of YM and the report on preliminary findings at the borehole accelerometer array on the ESF pad.

We intend to finish the software qualification for the two programs needed in the kappa project this coming quarter and produce the final kappa computations. We will finish HRC software qualification on all current Q programs, except FPFIT and HYPOINVERSE, by the end of January.