The AWI Network Antactica - Seismology in extreme environment
The AWI Network Antarctica is a small network around the German research base Neumayer III in Dronning Maud Land, a coastal region in the East Antarctic. The main purpose is the detection of regional earthquakes within the Antarctic plate. Antarctica is believed to be seismically inactive, but the g...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Conference Object |
| Language: | unknown |
| Published: |
2014
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/36008/ https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.43901 |
| Summary: | The AWI Network Antarctica is a small network around the German research base Neumayer III in Dronning Maud Land, a coastal region in the East Antarctic. The main purpose is the detection of regional earthquakes within the Antarctic plate. Antarctica is believed to be seismically inactive, but the global distribution of seismographic stations poorly covers the pole regions, therefore small earthquakes remain undetected. Environmental conditions in Antarctica are severe: Wind speeds up to 150 km/h and temperatures below -50° C. Retrieving continuous data at these conditions is challenging. The main problem is the power supply during the polar winter, when no solar energy is available. Wind generators are used as alternative, but shut down during storms. Additionally, cold batteries are difficult to charge. The network consists of three online stations (VNA1-3) in the vicinity of Neumayer Station and several offline stations in the larger region. The three online stations are within radio distance of Neumayer and can be maintained during the winter. One of them has an additional array of 15 one-component seismometers for more sensitive detection and to provide addional slowness and azimuth values for improving localization. Data from the offline stations is retrieved once a year and subsequently added to the database. The online stations are equipped with Kinemetrics Q330, while the offline stations are REFTEK recorders (RT130). The Antelope real time system acquires the online stations and stations from other networks in Antarctica. Due to the low number of stations and weather conditions, data has to be manually revised, picked and localized by the station staff. |
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