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Published July 1, 2020 | public
Journal Article

The U.S. Geological Survey's Rapid Seismic Array Deployment for the 2019 Ridgecrest Earthquake Sequence

Abstract

Rapid seismic deployments following large earthquakes capture ephemeral near‐field recordings of aftershocks and ambient noise that can provide valuable data for seismological studies. The U.S. Geological Survey installed 19 temporary seismic stations following the 4 July 2019 M_w 6.4 and 6 July 2019 (UTC) M_w 7.1 earthquakes near the city of Ridgecrest, California. The stations record the aftershock sequence beginning two days after the mainshock and are expected to remain in the field through approximately January 2020. The deployment augments the permanent seismic network in the area to improve azimuthal coverage and provide additional near‐field observations. This article summarizes the motivation and goals of the deployment; details of station installation, instrumentation, and configurations; and initial data quality and observations from the network. We expect these data to be useful for a range of studies including detailing near‐field variability in strong ground motions, determining stress drops and rupture directivity of small events, imaging the fault zone, documenting the evolution of crustal properties within and outside of the fault zone, and others.

Additional Information

© 2020 Seismological Society of America. Manuscript received 4 October 2019; Published online 15 January 2020. The authors are grateful to the Naval Air Weapons Station (NAWS) China Lake and Bureau of Land Management for granting permission for the emergency installation of U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) temporary seismic stations. The authors acknowledge Ken Hudnut and Ben Brooks for their management of initial field activities on NAWS China Lake, and Sue Hough and Kate Scharer for their coordination of broader USGS response activities. The authors are appreciative of Valerie Thomas sharing her knowledge on emergency station permitting. The authors thank the entire Southern California Seismic Network team, and especially Ellen Yu, for ensuring the ingestion of real‐time data (GS network stations) and data archival of non‐real‐time stations (ZY network stations). They thank Joseph Ramsey for assisting with site visits to retrieve data. The authors thank Albuquerque Seismological Laboratory (ASL) staff for their support during the deployment, including Patrick Bastien for remotely configuring and troubleshooting the Etna2s, and Steve Ploetz and Steve Roberts for helping prep and pack gear to get the USGS‐ASL field team on the road as quickly as possible. Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.

Additional details

Created:
August 19, 2023
Modified:
October 18, 2023