RAPID: Development and Deployment of a Prototype Full Ocean Depth OBS

Columbia University, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

This RAPID proposal seeks funding to develop, build and deploy a proto-type full ocean depth Ocean Bottom Seismograph (OBS) in the Mariana Trench in January 2013. Current OBSs are limited to deployment depths of 5000-6000m, and the few experiments that have deployed at or near those depths have had poorer instrument and data return rates. The scientific need for full ocean depth instruments is increasingly being recognized with recent large tsunamigenic subduction zone earthquakes, as well as broader interest in full global coverage of seismic monitoring for understanding deep earth processes. The PIs have been offered the opportunity to utilize full-ocean depth technology developed for the recent manned dive by James Cameron to Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench. In addition, a cruise of opportunity exists in January 2013, in which the instrument will be deployed at about 8600 m and collect approximately a week of seismic data at depth. Broader Impacts: This development project has the long term potential for using full ocean depth OBSs to monitor and perhaps forecast areas at risk for large destructive submarine earthquakes. Large submarine earthquakes in the last decade alone have taken hundreds of thousands of lives globally, cost hundreds of billions of dollars and resulted in catastrophic environmental damage such as the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster.