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Alaska has a “first-class” seismic system. The hard part is defending it against weather, bears, and uncertainty about financing
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GLACY VIEW – In a grassy schoolyard overlooking the Matanuska Glacier, a group of leading seismologists from around the world jumped up and down. They stomped their feet on the grass as Natalia Robert, a researcher at the Alaska Earthquake Center, counted to 10.
“Okay, stop,” she said. “I think this will show something.”
It did: Buried under the wheat-colored grass is a seismic device so sensitive that it can pick up the echoes of nuclear testing half a world away.
The station, located in the corner of the school playground, is known as M23K, and is one of more than 250 stations that make up Alaska's earthquake monitoring network.
The scientists were on a “field trip” from a major seismology conference in Anchorage last week, and came to see part of a system that generates powerful data that scientists use to probe the Earth's interior, and public safety personnel to alert people to the location, depth and size of earthquakes.
Operating such a network in Alaska is no easy feat. Scientists must maintain each site, provide power and connectivity and repair damage caused by extreme weather and Alaskan wildlife. It costs millions to do so each year, money that comes largely from federal grant funding.
In recent years, the Alaska network has expanded significantly, thanks to the acquisition of about 100 monitoring stations brought to Alaska as part of a National Science Foundation project. The stations were supposed to be temporary, but the Alaska Earthquake Center, with last-minute funding, purchased the sites. They are now among about 250 centers run directly by the
“This was an opportunity to achieve a true statewide grid like other places in the country,” state seismologist Michael West said.
This is important because Alaska is the site of potentially devastating earthquakes to humans, and it is also of scientific interest to researchers trying to understand the processes behind them.
Other states like California may have more sophisticated systems, West said.
“What we have — we have the ability to collect data, and we also have those actual geological events that are happening here,” he said.
Alaska now has a large-scale monitoring system in a place where a lot of seismic activity occurs, West said.
Alaska is known for its widespread, high-quality earthquake monitoring, said Jeroen Reitsma, a professor of geophysics and seismology at the University of Michigan, who was on the conference field trip.
“It's a first-class system,” he added.
Richard Aster, a professor of geophysics at Colorado State University, said the instruments are so sensitive that they can “see all the waves in the world pressing against the ocean shores.” Everything from a moose walking by to a huge earthquake in Japan has been recorded.
He said it was “the planet's neighborhood watch system.”
Each of the hundreds of stations sending data presents its own challenges. The M23K is an easy stop – it's on a school site and accessible via the road network. Many others are spread across some of Alaska's most remote locations. There are seismic stations on the uninhabited Aleutian Islands, on the Kulen River in northeastern Alaska and deep in the Brooks Range.
For the stations to work, they need an uninterruptible power supply to record and transmit data, even when they are located unattended in locations that experience months of darkness above the Arctic Circle, or in coastal mountains that can receive 30 feet of snow each winter. Batteries similar to those used in cars work, but carrying them to locations — which can only be reached by helicopter — adds to expensive maintenance costs. Sometimes lithium batteries work too, but are more expensive.
“The biggest part of the budget is helicopter time,” Robert said.
Sites close to population centers use cellular modems to transmit data back to researchers' offices, including some sites in villages that are able to link to infrastructure provided by a school or clinic. Other stations use radio networks. As a last resort, satellite communications can also work, but they consume a lot of power, according to Robert. Speed is key. The data is transferred to the lab “in seconds,” she said.
All the data is open source and public, so anyone can see and use it, West said.
Then there is the threat to wildlife. Seismic tools are buried underground using a hand-dug pit or pit, depending on the location, Robert said. The perimeter covers are designed to be vertical, with as few places as possible for bears to pull over.
“Sure, they're going to come and try to rip this up,” Robert said, pointing to the box covering the equipment buried at Station M23K. “We recently replaced these plastic wellhead boxes with steel. Steel withstands the forces better.
Bears that manage to open the shelter door where batteries and other electrical components are located cause havoc. Worst case scenario? The bears disconnect the sensor cable and the seismic data transmission stops, Robert said. Some stations were moved after recurring bear problems.
“Yes, I guess, too little sunshine, too much snow, too many bears,” she said. “Those are the three issues we are dealing with.”
[‘It looks like the end of the world’: The 1958 Alaska earthquake that generated the largest tsunami in recorded history]
It costs about $5 million a year to keep the network running, West said. The total budget for the Alaska Earthquake Center is about $7 million. West said the state budget has contributed in the past to the earthquake center's monitoring operations. But in recent years, the money has come largely from federal appropriations.
“It's fair to say our finances are very fragile,” West said. “It's always ups and downs. We're looking out for ourselves.”
Much of that federal funding has come through U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who supported purchasing more seismic sensors in Alaska in 2019. Earlier this year, Murkowski co-sponsored a bill that would send $175.4 million to federal agencies responsible for Reducing earthquake risk in the long term, although it is not clear how much of this money will ultimately go to the Alaska Earthquake Center.
Murkowski's office did not respond to a question about its support for the seismic network.
On the horizon: the possibility of an early warning system for earthquakes, like those in California, Washington and Oregon. Such a system would use statewide monitoring to deliver a text message to users seconds before the strongest shaking arrives.
Early warning systems do not predict earthquakes. Instead, they were intended to give people more time to get into a safe position to emerge from the earthquake.
This summer, about a third of Alaska's stations will have a visit and some type of maintenance, which may include replacing batteries or repairing damage. Robert said the season started on Sunday. There's no time to waste.
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