ENGAGING STUDENTS IN USARRAY SITE RECONNAISSANCE ACTIVITIES

One of the goals of the EarthScope project is to actively engage students who will become the next generation of Earth scientists. Over the last two years, the Transportable Array has supported this goal by employing university students to conduct site reconnaissance for future seismic stations in six western states.

Multi-day workshops were held at Oregon State University in 2005 and at the University of Utah in 2006 to introduce selected students and their faculty sponsors to EarthScope and USArray and to review seismic station requirements and a variety of electronic tools. The workshops also included a day in the field to provide students an opportunity to evaluate actual sites and to gain experience using GPS units.

Once assigned a geographic working area, the students applied GIS-based suitability analysis techniques to identify locations for further investigation and then traveled to these sites to determine the best location for the seismic station. An important aspect of the students' task involved interacting with landowners and collaborating with local seismic networks. The students prepared detailed reconnaissance reports to document their findings which were later verified by a professional seismologist.

This program has proven to be a very efficient and cost-effective way to locate a large number of sites for Transportable Array stations. It also provides an exciting learning opportunity for students and involves participation of universities within the region. In 2005, more than 50 sites in Oregon as well as a number of sites in Washington and Arizona were identified by 10 students. This past summer, 12 students and their sponsors conducted site reconnaissance for more than 100 sites in Utah, Idaho, and western Montana.