Webinar – Potential of an Alaska Amphibious Community Seismic Experiment

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Announcing a Webinar on the potential of an Alaska Amphibious Community Seismic Experiment

When: Monday, April 25 2016, 1:00p EDT

Register to Attend: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/8988913650872822532

Standard IRIS-hosted webinar format applies; attendees can type questions into the webinar interface, which will be communicated to the organizers.

Likely Presenters: Susan Schwartz, Geoff Abers, Rob Evans, Jeff Freymueller, Emily Roland, Doug Wiens

On March 16, NSF released a Dear Colleague Letter (DCL; NSF16-061; http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2016/nsf16061/nsf16061.jsp) encouraging proposals for community-driven shoreline-crossing seismological arrays along the Alaska subduction margin. The concept follows directly from the success of the Cascadia Initiative (http://cascadia.uoregon.edu/) community experiment, and is targeted toward subduction-related problems of relevance to GeoPRISMS and EarthScope science plans. The Alaska experiment would take advantage of the Alaska component of the Earthscope Transportable Array currently being deployed, in a region of great earthquakes and abundant volcanism. A workshop in October, 2014 provided scientific rationale for such successors to the Cascadia Amphibious Array, as outlined in a 2015 report. Much of that report emphasized the seismogenic megathrust and volatile cycling through the subduction factory as the two major science targets that require broad, shoreline-crossing observations in subduction zones. Both targets could be optimally addressed by studies of the Alaska margin. The DCL specifically invites community experiment proposals to be submitted to the July 15, 2016 GeoPRISMS deadline.

This webinar discusses some of the scientific opportunities for such a shoreline-crossing deployment of seismometers across the Alaska Margin, and opportunities for complementary magnetotelluric, geodetic, and other geophysical observations. It focuses on opportunities in the regions off the Alaska Peninsula and south-central Alaska, where the on-land Transportable Array exists, extending onshore and offshore.

The presenters will also discuss ways community members could become involved in a community proposal for such a deployment, along the lines described by the DCL. A web page (/research/community-projects/alaska/) has been set up to engage community members and communicate strategies, including a mechanism for qualified PI’s to volunteer to join the PI team.

This is an exciting opportunity to collect what should be one of the seminal data sets from an active subduction zone.