Innovation Theatre

“Innovative Earthquake Science and Technologies Developed in Taiwan”
J. Bruce H. SHYU
National Taiwan University

In the past decade, the Taiwan Earthquake Research Center (TEC) has promoted a series of studies on real-time seismology, earthquake early warning (EEW) and seismic hazard and risk analysis with support from the Minister of Science and Technology (MOST). In addition to the Taiwan Central Weather Bureau (CWB), who is doing a great job in monitoring regional seismicity, the earthquake science communities have been constantly developing new technologies to contribute to seismic hazard mitigation.
An automated near real-time moment tensor monitoring system (RMT) has been constructed to monitor the seismic activity by taking advantage of a grid-based moment tensor inversion technique and long-period broadband seismic recordings. All source parameters, including the event origin time, hypocentral location, moment magnitude and focal mechanism can be determined simultaneously with 117 seconds after the occurrence of an earthquake.
The P-Alert, a MEMS accelerometer that is specially designed for on-site earthquake early warning, has been widely deployed island-wide in Taiwan. It can detect first P-wave arrival and provide an alert with predicted intensity when the amplitude of vertical P-wave is over 0.35 cm. This EEW system is not only providing the on-site EEW but also reinforce the earthquake disaster prevention education.
By integrating the earthquake science, earthquake engineering, and social science communities of Taiwan, the Taiwan Earthquake Model (TEM) program is to improve our understanding of Taiwan earthquake mechanisms and therefore provide new insight into seismic hazard and risk assessments for Taiwan. We have published the first science-based hazard model of Taiwan on the basis of the Probability of Seismic Hazard Assessment (PSHA) approach.
The TEC not only acts as a platform for the advanced researches in earthquake science and technology, but also presenting real-time earthquake information and creative and diversity tools and materials for seismic education outreach.

“Q8 - Ultra-Low Power, High-Resolution Seismic System”
Mathias FRANKE
Kinemetrics, Inc.

The very successful USArray has illuminated the geological structure below the continental US (and now Alaska), with over 2,000 deployments over the last 14 years with a data return of 99.5% used for 130+ Ph.D. dissertations and 250+ peer-reviewed papers. The project is part of the EarthScope Program that was declared the “most epic science project of the last 15 years” by Popular Science Magazine. The experience gained over the years as both instrument providers and operators went into the design of the Qantix Q8. It is the newest member of the Quanterra family of ultra-high resolution data acquisition systems at ultra-low power consumption. Small in size and volume, the Q8 is designed for “plug’n play” into permanent seismic networks or portable deployments and offering improved reliability, extraordinary temperature stability and data redundancy. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, who is currently using Quanterra digitizers as OEM dataloggers in their Ocean Bottom Seismographs (OBS), will exploit these qualities.
The Q8 features 6+1 high-resolution channels for seismic data and loopback of calibration signals, while the 6 additional low-resolution channels could be used to monitor other ancillary equipment, such as meteorological stations, power monitoring, etc. A built-in ±2g MEMS 3-component accelerometer can provide critical information on near-field measurements or location-awareness of an OBS. The Q8 has Wi-Fi, Ethernet and Mesh communication, the latter enabling onsite maintenance without needing direct instrument access. Mirroring data on a removable USB flash drive (250GB) increases data availability and facilitates rapid data retrieval when needed. The Q8 also uses GNSS or external timing. For EEWS the Q8 provides low-latency (<1s) streaming. All this at 250mW. The most innovative and unique feature however is the new low-noise mode with very low thermal drift increasing the already exceptional 142dB full RMS sinewave to RMS noise by another 3dB.

"Earthquake Research Institute at your service"
Masataka KINOSHITA
Earthquake Research Institute, The University of Tokyo

The primary mission of the Earthquake Research Institute (ERI) is to promote basic & advanced researches of the solid earth to better understand earthquakes and volcanic activities. These understandings will promote basic researches for predicting earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and for mitigating their hazards. We also pursue basic researches on geodynamics of the solid earth. We have 80 researchers (professors, associate professors and research associates) expertized in seismology to volcanology, geophysics, geochemistry, geology, geodesy, applied mathematics, information science, civil engineering and seismic engineering. We have ~70 graduate students, and many of them are from overseas. We have a visiting professors/post-docs program up to one year (fully-funded by ERI).
During the AOGS 2018 general assembly, we have our exhibit booth at E06 with a dedicated staff standing by. We have some breaking events in Japan(Shin-Moe Dake eruption, Kumamoto earthquake, etc.) on display.
Also, our staff will help you guide for joining us with our researchers, either as a graduate student, post-docs, or visiting researchers.

"Advances in all-in-one weather station technology, a practical option for on-ground microclimate monitoring"
Shannon MITCHELL
METER Group

Today, weather data improves the lives of many people. But, there are still parts of the globe where weather monitoring doesn’t exist. There is a need for a new type of microclimate monitoring station that is less cluttered, complicated, and frustrating to install and maintain, especially for remote locations and novice users. Compact all-in-one weather stations solve many of these problems. The microclimate station developed by METER packages 12 weather sensors into a single, compact device. There are no moving parts to fail, installation and maintenance have been simplified, making it ideal for long-term data monitoring. The data are transmitted over a single cable, and the weather station works seamlessly with a plug-and-play data logger and cloud-based data storage. The Trans-African Hydro-Meteorological Observatory (TAHMO) and the Montana Mesonet (Montana, USA) are key development partners, testing and verifying the microclimate station under various environmental conditions. The TAHMO initiative seeks to install and operate 20,000 weather stations in sub-Saharan Africa. To date, TAHMO has installed 300 weather stations since 2012. The main goals are to provide high-quality microclimate data, freely available to governments, scientists, and farmers in near-real time. Most TAHMO weather stations are being installed at schools where teachers are using the data in their classroom lessons. The Montana Mesonet will build out a system of over 150 weather stations in Montana, USA. To date, 26 stations have been installed since 2016. The stations are installed in locations representing the range of environments and land uses across Montana. The main goals are to support adaptive management of agricultural lands, rangelands, and natural ecosystems with the aim of building resilient and sustainable economic and ecological systems. This talk will highlight the advances in METER’s all-in-one microclimate sensor suite technology and describe case studies that have validated the instrument design.

"Real-time measurements of formaldehyde in an urban airshed by near-infrared cavity ring-down spectroscopy"
Thomas GOTTSCHALK
Picarro, Inc

Formaldehyde is a critically important species in atmospheric chemistry. There are multiple direct emission sources of HCHO, and it is the photochemically-driven decay product of volatile organic compounds from both natural and anthropogenic sources. For this reason, real-time formaldehyde measurements provide critical insights into the mechanisms of tropospheric ozone formation. We describe a new commercial instrument based on cavity ring-down spectroscopy that provides real-time quantitative analysis of formaldehyde concentration in ambient air. In this presentation, we report on a 12-month measurement campaign of ambient HCHO at a 10m urban tower in the San Francisco Bay area. Measurements of HCHO (one minute averages) are analyzed, along with other key trace species H2O, CO2, CO, and CH4. Clear diurnal, synoptic, and seasonal cycles are apparent in this data set, and we observe transient HCHO signals from the August 2017 partial eclipse and the October 2017 Northern California wildfire event. The new analyzer used for this campaign has a precision (1-sigma) of about 1 ppb at a measurement rate of 1 second, and provides measurements of less than 100 ppt with minutes of averaging. Repeated measurements of a single gas standard over a period of months demonstrate that the instrument provides stable measurements (drift < 1 ppb) over long periods of time. The instrument has been ruggedized for both mobile (ground and flight) applications or for unattended operation at ground monitoring stations, and with a fast response time of a couple of seconds, it is suitable for ground-based vehicle deployments for fence line monitoring of formaldehyde emissions.

"Collaborative Research Action of Belmont Forum: Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience"
Yue-Gau CHEN
National Taiwan University

The Belmont Forum intends to support the co-development of science and stakeholder-based approaches to natural disaster risk reduction and hazard prevention through this joint call for proposals on the theme of Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience. For the purpose of this call, we define disasters as extreme environmental events that significantly impact the well-being of economic, health, infrastructure, social, and other aspects of the coupled human-nature systems. In recent decades, through national, regional, and international endeavors, our global society has gradually learned to manage devastating consequences of natural disasters and acknowledge that disaster mitigation can be most efficiently and effectively managed by collaborative engagement of all sectors of our society and through integration of interdisciplinary scientific understanding with stakeholder knowledge. Hence, this call specifically focuses on research efforts involving co-engagement and collective actions of all stakeholders to ameliorate natural disaster risk and enhance overall societal resilience to natural disasters. A good context for this call are the four priority areas for disaster risk reduction identified in the Sendai Framework for Disaster Reduction, namely: (1) understanding disaster risk; (2) strengthening disaster risk governance; (3) investing in disaster reduction for resilience; and (4) enhancing disaster preparedness for effective response, and to “build back better“ in recovery, rehabilitation and reconstruction.

"Recent Advances in Mass Spectrometric Technologies For The Earth Sciences"
Stephen SHUTTLEWORTH
Isotopx Inc

This talk will discuss isotope fractionation in the earth sciences, their causes, and how new advances in mass spectrometer detector technology can better measure this fractionation with greater accuracy and precision. Mass Spectrometric techniques are somewhat limited by the performance characteristics of their detector. In this work we discuss how the ATONA amplifier can replace the resistor in the detector feedback circuit with a capacitor. This results in extremely low noise Faraday detector systems when compared with resistors while at the same time providing for a very large dynamic range. This unique combination of low noise with a dynamic range in excess of nine orders of magnitude offers the opportunity to measure extremely small ion signals (samples) on Faraday collectors and also large isotope ratios using the same detector, without requiring a range of resistors, or combining Faraday with ion counting detection. This technology is opening up new opportunities for higher precision and better accuracy on dating techniques across a wide range of isotope ratio measurements in noble gas mass spectrometry and thermal ionization mass spectrometry (TIMS).

"The IBS Center for Climate Physics: scientific vision and research opportunities"
Axel TIMMERMANN
IBS Center for Climate Physics

The mission of the newly founded IBS Center for Climate Physics (ICCP) in Busan, South Korea is to enhance the basic understanding and improve the predictability of natural climate variability, man-made climate change and their impacts on the hydrological cycle, regional processes, ice-sheets, marine biogeochemistry and sea level. ICCP strives to make breakthroughs in the understanding of our climate system, its predictability and its interactions with humans. ICCP will provide basic scientific knowledge on the evolution of the climate system and its environmental and potential societal impacts. This information can eventually help the general public and policymakers in planning, decision making, and in optimizing adaption and mitigation efforts to climate-induced risks. The ICCP complements research activities in other Korean universities and international institutions by exploring and advancing new research frontiers in earth system science and by training a new generation of climate scientists in atmospheric sciences, oceanography, hydrodynamics, cryosphere and marine biogeochemistry, dynamical systems' analysis, numerical methods and advanced statistics. The ICCP pursues a holistic research approach to gain a deeper understanding of the interactions between the components of the climate system (i.e. atmosphere, ocean, vegetation, ice-sheets, marine biosphere and carbon cycle) and on a variety of timescales (days to millennia). My presentation will describe our current research portfolio, our future plans and future research opportunities for enthusiastic scientists.

Petra VAN STEENBERGEN
Springer

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"Smart Seismic Hardware: New Strategies for networking"
Clare SWEENEY
Güralp

Limitations in communication infrastructures and seismic instrumentation are common challenges faced by network operators seeking to install an efficient and accurate seismic network capable of handling the requirements of Earthquake Early Warning Systems (EEWS) Güralp’s range of ‘smart’ seismic hardware offer a simple interface with advanced on-board processing and can issue triggered event details and alerts with ultra-low-latency. This means a delay time of just 40-60ms from system triggering to issuing an alert. Güralp Data Interchange, (GDI) is an ultra-low latency data transmission protocol used by Guralp hardware which allows seismic waveforms to be transmitted sample by sample as they are acquired by the instrumentation. GDI adapts the size of the data packets to suit the network bandwidth available. This flexibility within the protocol means the lowest possible latency for the given network can be achieved.
A configurable voting mechanism is implemented on the Minimus to eliminate false positives which can incorporate a ‘score’ from different data sources i.e. Z channel on seismometer, N/S E/W channels on accelerometer and the internal Minimus MEMS. If the score exceeds the set threshold then an alert, in the form of a UDP packet, is sent to a predefined ‘Master Minimus’. If the pre-configured threshold on the Master Minimus is triggered then the Master will issue the triggered event data and/or an alert.
Minimus can issue alerts using Common Alert Protocol (CAP). CAP is the XML based data format used for exchanging and describing public warnings and emergencies. Whenever the trigger conditions are met the Minimus can send a signed UDP packet to the configured CAP receiver which will then send the alert via SMS, e-mail or CAP forwarding, or multiples thereof. Being able to stream the alerts to multiple destinations provides increased network redundancy.