Project titled: seismic monitoring of washington and oregon volcanoesproject period: 5 1 2025 through 4 30 2030AWARD purpose: the pacific northwest seismic network (pnsn) at the university of…

This federal Cooperative Agreement award, valued at $358,556.07 and funded by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Research and Data Collection program (CFDA 15.808), supports the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network (PNSN) at the University of Washington (UW) and the USGS Cascades Volcano Observatory (CVO) to continuously monitor seismic activity at high-threat volcanoes in Washington and Oregon. The project aims to detect changes that could indicate imminent volcanic activity and improve the scientific understanding of volcanic systems in the Cascadia region. Key activities include operating seismic stations that transmit real-time data to UW, automatically detecting and analyzing seismic events, and archiving all collected data with the National Science Foundation's Seismological Facility. The award period is from May 1, 2025 through April 30, 2030.

Activities

Pnsn operates seismic stations that continuously record ground vibrations in the region and send the raw data to the UW in real-time, 24 7. Computer software automatically detects earthquakes and other types of events. All detections are reviewed, labeled, and better located by an analyst. The latitude, longitude, depth, magnitude, origin time, and focal mechanism of each reasonably well-located event, along with the arrival times and amplitude measurements of the seismic phases that were used to determine those, are sent to the comprehensive catalog of the advanced national seismic system. All events, poorly located or well-located, are saved in a local database. UW permanently archives all the collected seismic data by sending IT to the national science foundation s seismological facility for the advancement of geoscience, operated by earthscope, that provides open access to seismic data from around the world in standardized formats. UW maintains the pnsn website to inform the public about earthquakes and volcanic hazard in our region and includes pages specific to each volcano with additional products such as spectrograms that show the shaking energy in different frequency bands over time and cumulative counts of earthquakes at a particular volcano over time. A graduate student will apply a suite of more sophisticated analysis methods to waveform data collected since 1980 to determine optimal configurations and tuning for each volcano and the region. The most successful methods will be implemented for continuous operation. We will continue to maintain and operate the seismic network and keep the data flowing 24 7. In addition, we will finish upgrades of old sites from antiquated equipment to modern equipment at MT. Saint helens, MT. Rainier, and MT. Hood.

Expected outcomes

The catalog and products will be used by CVO scientists to monitor volcano activity levels in WA and or. Using a three-dimensional earth crust model will improve the earthquake locations in our catalog and enhance the ability to tie seismicity to specific geologic structures and processes. Upgraded seismic sites produce data that will be used for more sophisticated analysis to advance our collective understanding of the cascade volcanoes and volcanoes in general.

Intended beneficiaries

USGS cascade volcano observatory, the residents of WA, or, and beyondsubrecipients: n a