Annual Report:

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1 Annual Report for Period:04/ /2003 Submitted on: 10/01/2002 Principal Investigator: Jansma, Pamela E. Award ID: Organization: U of Arkansas Title: Collaborative research: magma reservoir-conduit dynamics as revealed by a borehole geophysical observatory and continuous GPS Senior Personnel Name: Jansma, Pamela Worked for more than 160 Hours: Project Participants Contribution to Project: Dr. Jansma acted as a substitute PI for Dr. Glen S. Mattioli while he was an IPA to the National Science Foundation, where he was the Program Director for Petrology and Geochemistry in the Division of Earth Sciences. Dr. Mattioli has now returned to his normal duties as an Associate Professor in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Arkansas and now will take up all scientific and technical responsibilities associated with this award. A Formal request for a change of PI will be submitted as soon as possible. Dr. Jansma will remain a co-pi, although she will not accept any salary from this award. She will provide techical guidence and scientific coordination with other ongoing GPS geodetic projects in the Lesser Antilles arc. Name: Mattioli, Glen Worked for more than 160 Hours: Contribution to Project: Dr. Mattioli was the original PI when this grant was submitted to the NSF in February Dr. Mattioli accepted a position as Program Director for the Petrology and Geochemistry program in the Division of Earth Sciences in July 2001 and prior to starting at NSF he was required to have a substitute PI in order for the final action on pending proposal to be taken. Dr. Jansma was substitued for Dr. Mattioli as PI and all the required supporting documentation was submitted to NSF as per the Continental Dynamics Program Director's request. Dr. Jansma handled all communications and negotiations with the NSF during Dr. Mattioli's tenure as an IPA at NSF, but Dr. Mattioli maintained his technical and scientific role with the Collaborative Research project. He attended all scientific meetings held by the group at the Carnegie Institution, designed the CGPS hardware, data telemetry, remote power infrastructure, and data processing and archival procedures for the CALIPSO borehole and CGPS project during this time. In addition, he has continued to develop elastic half-space models for application to the Soufriere Hills volcano and applied these to the existing CGPS data set from As Dr. Mattioli's NSF appointment ended immediately prior to the initiation of the academic year at the University of Arkansas, where he receives a 9 month salary, he has not accepted any salary for his work on this project to date, but intends to use the budgeted summer salary from the first CGI during the summer of No Yes Post-doc Graduate Student Name: Turner, Henry Worked for more than 160 Hours: No Page 1 of 7

2 Contribution to Project: Mr. Turner is a master of science candidate in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Arkansas. He is jointly supervised by Dr. Jansma and Dr. Mattioli. He participated in the June-July 2002 Geophysical Field Camp and expedition on the Soufriere Hills volcano. During this camp, the participants, which included undergraduate and graduate students from Leeds University in the U.K., and Penn State and DukeUniversities in the U.S. used various field geophysical techniques to survey possible sites for the new borehole and CGPS observatory. Mr. Turner's participation was funded independently through an NSF award to Dr. Peter Malin at Duke. Mr. Turner has received no salary from the NSF-CD project and does not intend to pursue additional research on Soufriere Hills magma dynamics for his M.S. degree. Funding is available to support one graduate research assistant on this project. While several students at the University of Arkansas have expressed interest in this project, none has yet agreed to participate and the assistantship remains unallocated to date. In addition, funding is available to support an undergraduate student. Dr. Mattioli has interviewed one promising undergraduate student who has expressed an interest in working on the Montserrat project. Final arrangements for the research topic and the hourly commitment have yet to be established. Undergraduate Student Technician, Programmer Other Participant Research Experience for Undergraduates The Pennsylvania State University Organizational Partners Carnegie Institution Washington Duke University Bristol University Bristol and Leeds Universities have obtained additional financial support for this NSF project through a NERC grant. The funding was transferred to Penn State and after currency conversion, wire fees, etc. amounts to $190K, which will be used to partially support drilling costs incurred by DOSECC. Montserrat Volcano Observatory The Montserrat Volcano Observatory will provide space for computers and electronics related to the borehole observatory. In addition, they will allow the borehole observatory research team access to existing and future geophysical observations including ground deformation (currently there are 3 CGPS sites), electronic tilt, and short period and broadband seismic data. It is anticipated that MVO personnel will provide routine maintenance for all new and integrated instrumentation related to the borehole and CGPS observatory. Page 2 of 7

3 The University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez UPRM has an existing CGPS network (3 sites) and RF telemetry infrastructure on the Soufriere Hills volcano. The CGPS and RF networks are fully integrated with their MVO equivalents. Dr. Mattioli was the PI on two NASA awards to the University of Puerto Rico that resulted in the purchase, installation, and maintenance of this infrastructure from The equipment is on long term loan to the MVO from UPRM and will remain in place until it either fails or the MVO is closed. Other Collaborators or Contacts Activities and Findings Research and Education Activities: After lengthy discussion and careful consideration, the Montserrat borehole/ CGPS project has been designated by us as the 'Caribbean Andesite Lava Island-volcano Precision Seismo-geodetic Observatory,' with the acronym CALIPSO. An appropriate mascot was designated by the team. The following summary was provided by the Project Leader, Dr. Barry Voight, and only is slightly modified from his independent submission. As the new instrumentation is not yet installed, activities have focused on finalizing borehole instrument design, locating borehole sites on Motserrat, selecting a drilling contractor, investigating drilling logistical issues and costs, finalizing additional hardware requirements, designing data-streaming methodology and archiving, and planning for field logistics on Montserrat during drilling and instrument installations. A pre-award meeting was held in Washington D.C. in November 2001, which outlined details of the project for all collaborators and provided an overview of the volcanology and geophysics of the site. Issues required for planning were identified. A second group meeting was held in Washington D.C. on April , which focused on borehole drilling technical and contract issues, seismometer options for deep boreholes, ideas on datastream management, and coordination for a field geophysics camp, separately funded but aimed at providing details on the subsurface for some borehole sites. DOSECC was selected as the drill contractor, and the need was recognized to schedule a field visit by DOSECC in Summer 2002 on Montserrat. On August 1, another meeting of the CALIPSO team was held in Washington D.C., reviewing the results of the field visits, eliciting borehole site priorities, reviewing drilling logistics and reconsidering cost estimates, reviewing datastream hardware issues and costs, finalizing the drill schedule, and discussing personnel requirements and logistics during drilling. Dr. Mattioli gave three invited presentations on his ongoing analysis and modeling of the GPS geodetic data from the Soufriere Hills volcano and the planned new installation of the borehole/cgps observatory to the following organizations: Page 3 of 7

4 1) The Geological Society of Washington on February 13, 2002 ( 2) The Center for Earthquake Research and Information, University of Memphis on March 1, 2002 ( 3) The Potomac Geophysical Society on May 16, 2002 ( PGS/history/01-02.html) 4) The American Geophysical Union Spring Meeting on May 29, 2002 ( Findings: The following summary was prepared by the Project Lead Dr. Barry Voight and is only slightly modified from his independent submission to include relevant additional information from the University of Arkansas. Findings to date revolve about the decisions made on instrumentation, drilling, hole siting, data management, and budget. Instrumentation involves borehole strainmeters, borehole seismometers, tiltmeters, CGPS systems. The strainmeters are now being constructed at CIW by N. McWhorter, using two designs developed by S. Sacks of the Carnegie Institution. One design is for cold holes, with the strainmeter at the bottom of the hole, a 5/8-inch cable above, seismometer and tiltmeter above, and strainmeter set in batch cement. The hot hole design keeps strainmeter electronics at the surface with pressures transmitted hydraulically by capillary tubing. The seismometer is below the strainmeter at the bottom of the hole; the strainmeter is lowered by 1.25-inch pipe which serves as conduit for setting cement. There is no room for a tiltmeter. The designs are aimed at conditions on Montserrat, which for some holes may have hydrothermal temperature control with temperatures >>100 degrees C. The seismometers are designed by P. Malin of Duke University, with narrow diameter and capability to record data to ~2 Hz. Borehole tiltmeters are commercially available today from Applied Geomechanics and Pinnacle Technology corporations. The CALIPSO project anticpates using the Pinnacle Technology series 5000 borehole tiltmeters because of their higher sensitivity and lower cost. The final decision will be made by B. Voight at Penn State. Several competing CGPS systems were evaluated by G. Mattioli of the University of Arkansas. Existing CGPS infrastructure on the Soufriere Hills volcano includes three Trimble 4000SSi and three Leica Geosystems units all equiped with Dorn-Margolin choke ring antennae. Current dual-frequency, code-phase receiver systems are available from Trimble, Ashtech, and Jarod with special UNAVCO pricing for US universities. We opted for the Ashtech micro-z CGPS system with choke ring antennae because of their lower price, excellent noise characteristics, and lower power consumption. Six units were ordered and have already been delivered to the University of Arkansas. Remote power requirements for all the required instrumentation were determined and a solar, wind, and battery backup system was designed to meet the expected power demands by G. Mattioli. All the required components have been ordered for this system and delivery is expected in the next 10 days. Final drill sites chosen by the CALIPSO team include Little Bay, Trant's (Airport), Lover's Lane (Plymouth), Molyneux, Woodlands Estate, Old Quaw. Page 4 of 7

5 Location characteristics may be found on the project web site ( and include grid reference and latitude- longitude, hot/cold hole, water availability, ownership, distance and bearing from dome, and telemetry route to the Observatory (MVO). Three RF telemetry repeater sites were identified. New RF telemetry infrastructure will be integrated into the existing FreeWave 900 Mhz digital, spread-spectrum RF network currently maintained by the MVO. Originally the project aimed at four drill sites, but CIW is providing without extra cost three instruments for each type of installation, hot and cold, to provide backup if some problems should arise. If problems do not arise, the project team has decided to attempt installation in six boreholes, which greatly improves the scientific capacity by additional distance and azimuthal coverage. G. Mattioli also has agreed to increase the number of CGPS sites from the originally budgeted four to six. These decisions have implications for the overall project budget, with the drilling budget increased and other budget items squeezed, but we are unanimous in our desire to make six holes our top priority. Additional costs also arise from the two additional required remote power installations. S. Young and B. Voight explored possible options for drilling a hole in the south of the island, but found no realistic possibilities, given the nature of the landscape, pressing safety concerns for the drilling and scientific crews, and helicopter access requirements for equipment and personnel. Some surface installations may be added on the south, e.g., CGPS and tilt. Several shallow holes (10-20 m) are planned to back up the deep (200m) holes, e.g., by enabling tiltmeter installations near the hot-hole sites that exclude them. Analog to digital conversion and data stream management will use Quanterra Q330-6, broadband seismic aquisition systems. This is a brand new device and its selection was governed largely by its very low power requirements (<3 W) and the remote DC power availability from the solar/wind system. The other possible device is the Q4128GS-2/E16 also from Quanterra, but requires >30 W of power to operate, which is not tenable from site with only remote solar/wind sources. In addition, while the Q330-6 units do not provide local data caching in the event of RF telemetry interuption, digital packet balers (PB-14) can be added at some later date when and if additional funds become available from NSF or other sources. The downside to using the Q330-6 versus the Q4128GS-2/E16 datalogger is that the product will not be available for delivery for 120 days. Drilling will be conducted by the DOSECC team, which will arrive on-site around October 27 and begin drilling November 4. Drilling will be conducted by two-man crews on two 12-hour shifts, providing 24-hour continuous drilling. Drilling is expected to be completed after Christmas. During the drill process, we expect that at least two members of the project team will be available, so that decisions may be rendered on a 24-hour basis. We will also need to provide one person at the rig at all times to assist the drillers and aid in communications, and in addition will need to provide backup to MVO to enable the seismicity etc to be watched carefully when the drill rigs are in the daytime entry zones. We hope to use students for some of this backup, and have applied for REU funding to the NSF-CD Program to cover the costs. Training and Development: Dr. Mattioli has benefited directly by his increased knowledge and appreciation of the technical issues related to borehole geophysical Page 5 of 7

6 instrumentation, data management, and archival. The Field Course conducted at Montserrat in July 2002 involved five graduate students from Penn State and two undergraduates, as well as several graduate students from Duke and Arkansas. Many of these students are expected to participate in CALIPSO at some level, gaining experience in sophisticated instrumentation, and participating in materials characterization and modeling. While no Arkansas student is currently working on this project, Mr. Turner gained valuable experience from his participation in the Field Course on Montserrat that will be of use to him in his M.S. thesis research in Nicaragua. MVO techical and professional staff will also benefit from installation experience and from information helpful to their hazards management duties. Dr. Mattioli has provided frequent and timely data analysis of the CGPS data stream for the ongoing eruption to the MVO to aid in its hazard assessment and mitigation efforts. Outreach Activities: Dr. Mattioli was interviewed by phone for an article which appeared in GeoTimes on the anniversary of the 1902 Pelee eruption on Martinique. Issues discussed with the reporter related to the ongoing eruption in Montserrat and the planned new borehole/cgps observatory. In addition, Dr. Mattioli has written one brief commentary for the University of Arkansas public outreach office to explain how and why volcanoes erupt. Data and knowledge from this project will be incorporated into a new class to be taught at the University of Arkansas in the spring semester, which is entited 'Applications of GPS geodesy to the Geosciences.' The course will be team taught by the PI, Dr. Jansma, and Dr. Mattioli. Journal Publications Mattioli, G., Herd, R., Aponte, M., Dixon, T., Jansma, P., and A. Smith, "The Dynamics of an Ongoing Andesitic Eruption: What We Have Learned From Surface Deformation at Soufriere Hills Volcano, Montserrat, BWI", Eos Trans. AGU, 83(19), Spring Meet. Suppl., Abstract T31A-06, 2002, p. 35, vol. 83(19), (2002). Published Glen S. Mattioli, Richard Herd, Pamela E. Jansma, "Modeling of surface deformation cycles at Soufriere Hills, Montserrat from October 1995 to December 2001", Eos Trans. AGU, 83, Fall Meet. Suppl., Abstract #####-##, 2002, p., vol. 83, (2002). Submitted Books or Other One-time Publications URL(s): Description: Web/Internet Site Other Specific Products Contributions within Discipline: Contributions Contributions to Other Disciplines: Page 6 of 7

7 Contributions to Human Resource Development: Contributions to Resources for Research and Education: Contributions Beyond Science and Engineering: Special Requirements Special reporting requirements: Unobligated funds: Less than 10 percent of current funds Change in Objectives or Scope: None Unobligated funds: less than 20 percent of current funds Animal, Human Subjects, Biohazards: None Categories for which nothing is reported: Any Book Any Product Contributions: To Any within Discipline Contributions: To Any Other Disciplines Contributions: To Any Human Resource Development Contributions: To Any Resources for Research and Education Contributions: To Any Beyond Science and Engineering Page 7 of 7