Facilitating New Discoveries in Seismology and Exploring the Earth: The Next Decade

Earthscope Consortium Inc., Washington DC

Investigators

Abstract

The Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (the IRIS Consortium, www.iris.edu) operates multi-user facilities for the development, deployment, and operational support of modern digital seismic instrumentation and data management to serve national and international research and education in the Earth sciences. IRIS programs are overseen and governed by a Consortium of 115 Member Institutions, comprising virtually every US university with research programs in seismology. Consortium membership also includes 107 Foreign Affiliates and 20 Educational Affiliates. IRIS collaborates with national and international mission agencies, including the USGS, NOAA, DOE, DOD and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization, to leverage NSF investments to serve significant societal needs in the monitoring of earthquakes, tsunamis and nuclear test ban treaties. The preeminence of US Earth science in investigations of the Earth?s interior and earthquake sources rests in large part on the data and instrumentation facilities supported by NSF and managed by IRIS. The programs and activities to be carried out by IRIS under this award take their intellectual direction from a community-based long-range science plan described in the 2009 report: ?Seismological Grand Challenges in Understanding Earth?s Dynamic Systems? (www.iris.edu/hq/files/publications/iris_proposals/doc/seis_plan_final.pdf). Seismology provides a rich source of information on the structure and composition of Earth's crust, mantle, and core that, when coupled with other types of data in the growing number of interdisciplinary studies to which IRIS is committed, continues to enhance our understanding the origin of the planet, its evolution through geologic time, as well as the internal forces driving plate dynamics, earthquakes, volcanism, and the geomagnetic field. Recent developments in seismic sensor design, and the acquisition, transmission and storage of data have resulted in dramatic improvements in the resolving power of seismic imaging of Earth?s interior and characterization of the earthquake source. In addition to supporting basic research and discovery in the Earth sciences, the IRIS facilities also contribute essential data, resources and educational materials to programs with broad societal impact related to earthquake hazard mitigation, groundwater, energy and mineral exploration. The facilities and services managed by IRIS include: ? Instrumentation Services - operation and support for the 150 permanent broadband stations of the Global Seismographic Network (in collaboration with the USGS) and a pool of more than 2000 portable instruments of the Program for Array Seismic Studies of the Continental Lithosphere (PASSCAL) for denser deployments in NSF-funded research projects both in the US and abroad. ? Data Services ? free and open access through the IRIS Data Management Center to all data collected by IRIS programs or contributed by numerous national and international partners, along with support for software development, user tools, training services and data products to facilitate broad data utilization and encourage high quality standards in data collection and data management. ? Education and Public Outreach - creating materials and tools to encourage the public and educators at all levels to explore seismological data and advance awareness and understanding of seismology & Earth science, while inspiring careers in geophysics. Under the new Cooperative Agreement with NSF starting in 2011, IRIS will merge its long-standing support for Polar studies in both the Antarctic and Arctic with its other core services; move towards integrated management, starting in 2013, of its core programs with the related facilities of the USArray component of EarthScope; and continue to explore emerging opportunities to support research and hazard mitigation efforts in earthquake prone areas of the developing world.