A new seismic station near Aspen, Colo., recorded a mining-induced earthquake earlier this month as it began operating and sending data to a national monitoring network as part of a joint effort by the University of Colorado at Boulder and the U.S. Geological Survey.
The Snowmass station, installed June 30, is part of the U.S. Advanced National Seismic System and uses a satellite link to continuously relay data to the National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colo.
Project coordinator Anne Sheehan, an associate professor in CU-Boulder's department of geological sciences who is also affiliated with the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, said the station is sensitive enough to record earthquakes around the world.
"This seismograph station will greatly improve our ability to monitor earthquakes in Colorado," Sheehan said. "It will be used to improve our understanding of the deep structure beneath the Colorado Rocky Mountains through use of seismic imaging techniques. It's also an important teaching tool for our geology and geophysics classes at CU-Boulder."
"This is a very good station for detecting earthquakes in Colorado," said Waverly Person, director of the U.S. Geological Survey's National Earthquake Information Service. "We need more stations like this one in order to really determine the seismicity of the state."
The Snowmass station is the third Advanced National Seismic System station to be installed in Colorado. The other two are located in Idaho Springs, Colo., and at Great Sand Dunes National Monument, near Mosca, Colo.
The station's data will be scanned by computer and by human analysts to locate earthquakes from Colorado and the surrounding region. During its first few weeks of operation and testing, the station recorded a magnitude 2.8 mining-induced earthquake that caused damage at a mine near Paonia, Colo., according to Sheehan.
Located high in the Snowmass ski area, the station consists of a seismometer, which measures ground motion, a digitizer that records data and a satellite dish to send information to the National Earthquake Information Center in Golden. The station is powered by car batteries that are recharged by solar panels.
Funding for the CU-Boulder seismometer and digitizer was provided by the National Science Foundation. Telemetry and installation costs for the new station were paid for by the USGS. The Snowmass station is the first to be run cooperatively between CU-Boulder and the U.S. Geological Survey.