Seismologists set up telemetry system in wake of Wells earthquake (3/16/2008)

University researchers from the Nevada Seismological Laboratory, with the help of Wells Electric Company Snowcats and in cooperation with the U.S. Geological Survey, set up a telemetry system near Wells, Nev., in the wake of that rural Nevada community's magnitude 6.0 earthquake last month. Photo by Ken Smith.

Even now, several days after traveling to Wells, Nev., to set up a telemetry network to gain a better understanding of the magnitude 6.0 earthquake that rocked the rural Nevada community last month, Nathan Edwards shakes his head with a sense of amazement.

Just a few years ago, before any of the current technology was available, such an undertaking would've been impossible.

Wells, a community of about 1,600 residents, is located in a remote area of Nevada, about 60 miles west of the Utah state line. Damage to Wells, estimated at close to $1 million, included the ruin of several buildings in the town's historic district.

"It was very difficult," Edwards, a development technician II in the University's Nevada Seismological Laboratory, said. "Most of the stations were about at 6,000 feet or so, so there was snow everywhere ... we needed Snowcats just to get there."

Although the process was difficult, the results have been notable.

Scientists and technicians from the Nevada Seismological Laboratory, working with representatives from the United States Geological Survey in Golden, Colo., and the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah, began setting up a telemetry system within days of the Feb. 21 earthquake.

It was up and running by Tuesday, Feb. 26, and has been supplying scientists with data on the quake - the strongest in Nevada in 14 years - in real time ever since.

"We hadn't had an event like this in a long time," said Ken Smith, associate research professor and manager of the Nevada Seismological Laboratory's seismic network. "In fact, we had never installed a wireless network on short order like this before. It's been probably about 10 years since we had a similar earthquake response. Now we're in an IP environment, plus we have cell phones and mobile internet devices - we didn't have those things 10 years ago.

As Smith said, it took the collective effort of many different agencies and organizations to make the system a reality, and many thanks to the community of Wells.

The path of the data from the eight monitoring stations located a few miles northeast of Wells requires good knowledge of Nevada geography. Smith said that 8 of the 20 stations have telemetry, which can deliver information in real time via remote IP radios that communicate through DOIT's microwave network. The University of Utah subsequently installed analog telemetry to four more among the 20 total.

To do this, though, the data is transmitted from radios at remote sites to a link at the State Microwave system at Turner Station near Wells, to the State's Angel Peak site outside of Las Vegas, then to UNLV, where the data, as Smith puts it, "jumps on the University network. The way the network is configured it's literally on the Seismology Lab's private network, giving us better control of the instrumentation."

Similar approaches have been used in the wake of volcanic eruptions, Smith said, but this could be one of the first times that such a comprehensive IP network has been deployed in the wake of a significant earthquake in the United States.

"Eight real-time stations right on top of the earthquake sequence up and running within a week is pretty unique," he said. "It's surely never been done before in Nevada. It's the model for how we want to respond to future significant earthquakes in the State."

Adds John Torrisi, an associate engineer at the Nevada Seismological Laboratory who helped get the system running: "We've set out portable deployments over the years, but this is my first time doing a telemetered array. Just coordinating this effort with all the different people out there has been one of the really unique aspects of this."

Smith says that in addition to the cooperating research entities, help from an amalgam of concerned groups, including the Elko County Sheriff's Department, Wells Rural Electric, the Division of Information Technology (DOIT) and the Division of Emergency Management for the State of Nevada, helped make the undertaking a success.

"They all played important roles in this," Smith said. He pauses and gestures, holding his hands several feet apart. "We had snow this deep out there. If we didn't have Snowcats, we never could have gotten out there ... the DOIT guys went down to Angel Peak outside of Las Vegas and completed the circuit (the signal from Wells) for us. We really appreciate their help.

"All of the people in Wells have been so concerned about the earthquake, and they want to have as much information about it as they possibly can."

Good data, recording the hundreds of aftershocks that have continued since the quake, have been pouring in since the system went live.

"Our job now is to try to isolate the geometry of the fault underground," said Smith, explaining that the earthquake occurred on what is called a "normal fault." A "normal fault" features a process where one side of a fault drops down relative to other.

"This was a normal fault, and there is a lot of interest in normal faults," Smith added. "There's not been a normal faulting event that has been as well recorded at this one. We can use this data to estimate what the effects of a magnitude 6.0 earthquake will be in other parts of the State".

"The important thing is, we got out there quickly, we got the telemetry system up, and now we're sharing the 'live' data with the rest of the country."

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by the University of Nevada, Reno

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