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: 04/01/2005 – 06/30/2005

Progress:

During this reporting period (Apr.-Jun. 2005), 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 99.7% over the three months. In addition, we have maintained QA data collection from 9 accelerometers in 3 boreholes on the ESF pad and from 3 acceleometer/seismometer installations in the ESF itself.

The long outage since January of 9 SGBDSN stations due to winter-storm power interruption at Shoshone Peak continued until 05/10/2005 when the power was finally restored to the telemetry equipment. Impact on seismic monitoring was substantial for these months, but is likely to be of little consequence when viewed in a larger timeframe.

The software qualification of MLCALC, V3.0, is nearly complete. Software qualification activity has also started on Q3302ORB, V4.7. Kappa software QA has been delayed by questions about how spectra are normalized and corrected.

TR-04-001, the report on borehole accelerometers, is nearing completion after resolution of QA issues.

Data from the UZ-16 borehole (64 channels) is now being continuously transmitted via TCP/IP to an Antelope system at NSL. Data from the University of Texas Austin (Ken Stokoe’s group) ‘Liquidator’ truck mounted vibrator was recorded on the UZ-16 data acquisition system. Several local earthquakes have been recorded, the largest being an M 2.5 about 60 km north of Yucca Mountain on 6/28/2005.

We have purchased equipment for installation of three seismic stations on the surface above our three tunnel stations. Environmental approval has been given for these installations.

Four new Sun computers have been installed in the analysis room (SunBlade 2500), and all four workstations have been supplied with dual screens. Performance and response are significantly increased for routine analysis.

Problems:

Nine stations of our network were down from roughly 10 January to 10 May while waiting on Bechtel Nevada to complete repairs to the power line. This is the second extended outage caused by wind damage to the Shoshone Peak power line. We strongly believe that a ground-based power line is needed here to prevent reoccurrence.

Status of Funds:

As of 06/30/2005, we have expended $1,277K of FY2005 funds on Task 6, out of a total FY2005 allocation of $1,705K. This amounts to 69% spent, whereas straight-line projection would be 75% spent.

Plans:

We will deliver the report (TR-04-001) on preliminary findings at the borehole accelerometer array on the ESF pad; this report had been held up for a technical data assessment and miscellaneous QA issues, which are now resolved.

We will finish the preparation of the FY2004 earthquake catalog for the Yucca Mountain vicinity, submit the data, and prepare the report to accompany it.

We will install the three stations on the Yucca Mountain crest over the three tunnel stations in the last quarter. We will also start the recorder replacement cycle for the 29-station SGBDSN and the upgrade of a few independent strong-motion sites to telemetered recording.

We expect to complete software QA for MLCALC, kappaAH, and Q3302ORB.