The Think 3D Stormbee multicopter integrated with Trimble’s AP15 provides efficiency, accuracy and performance for lidar surveys from unmanned vehicles.
Historically, lidar-based aerial surveys were impractical for all but the largest unmanned systems. Because of Applanix’ development of small, lightweight and low-powered direct georeferencing solutions, airborne lidar scans from small drones are now practical, cost-effective, highly accurate and excellent options for lidar surveys, according to the company.
The Stormbee is a directly georeferenced UAV lidar solution for 3D industrial mapping applications, designed to collect survey grade spatial data in a significantly more cost effective and efficient way than static lidar.
The Stormbee, a Faro Focus 130 laser scanner, and the AP15.
Stormbee’s 3D mapping technologies include Faro’s Focus 130 laser scanner, Trimble’s AP15 high performance GNSS/inertial receiver, Applanix’s POSPac UAV GNSS/inertial post-processing software and Stormbee’s proprietary Beeflex software for lidar point cloud generation.
Industrial applications (GNSS-denied environments) pose unique challenges for laser scanning using traditional static systems, due to obstructions and poor signal environments. These issues lead to increased costs and operational time.
By using the high-performance Trimble AP15 with two antenna and the Applanix post-processing software (POSPac MMS) for georeferencing the lidar data, Stormbee provides an accurate real-time and post-mission solution for all motion variables.
Applanix has brought together its decades of experience in multi-frequency, multi-constellation Differential GNSS and inertial based positioning and orientation with the best in small-form factor hardware and powerful software, to produce a DG solution for professional aerial mapping on UAVs.
With a system delivering better than 5-cm accuracy (real mean squared) and high resolution, Stormbee and Applanix offer 3D detail from a platform moving at speeds up to 15 meters per second. The Stormbee leverages Applanix’s decades of experience in direct georeferencing of lidar systems to collect the most accurate 3D data.
Benefits of the system:
compact, easy-to-operate and cost-effective
centimeter-level mobile positioning accuracy for 3D mapping products
improved productivity, with optimized workflow from data capture to georeferenced point cloud generation
superior visualization: Lidar scanners provide more accurate information of structures than camera technologies
Think 3D, a Belgian company, is a 3D scanning company for many industrial applications including those in the beverage, steel, pharmaceuticals, chemicals and tank terminals industries. Think3D helps companies make changes to their installations by providing a full 3D CAD model of their installation.
Stormbee to date has proven to be effective in many industries including mining, engineering, dredging, forensics, universities and survey.
La Direction générale de l’armement (DGA), the French Defence Procurement Agency, has entrusted the firm tranche of the 10-year SYSENV contract to Airbus Defence and Space and its four partners, for the production of the SI GEODE4D information system for the French Armed Forces.
This system is an essential component of the GEODE4D programme (geography, hydrography, oceanography and meteorology for defence) and will be available via a single and secure portal.
It will allow all Ministry of Defence actors to access and share the same geophysical environment data and select and present them in a coherent way, according to the “one card for all” principle.
“This programme shows the confidence of the DGA in Airbus and its partners for the construction of this information system for the French Armed Forces,” said François Lombard, Head of the Intelligence Business Cluster at Airbus Defence and Space. “One of the major challenges for the SI GEODE4D, which can truly be qualified as the active digital map of the 21st century, is also to assist our armed forces with their digital transformation.”
It is vital to reinforce the ability to manage information and intelligence for early threat detection and identification. To provide an appropriate response to these varied and constantly changing threats, an accurate understanding of the geophysical environment is crucial for deployed forces.
In future, the SI GEODE4D system, consisting of various services and applications, will provide the armed forces with an interoperable, coherent and shared vision of the geophysical environment, consistent with the NATO REP concept (Recognised Environmental Picture).
The consortium is headed by Airbus Defence and Space and built around four innovative and specialised partner companies: Magellium for geography; Météo France International for meteorology, hydrography and oceanography; Bertin for the tool providing decision-making aids; and Deloitte for change management.
The contract also includes the refurbishment of the geographical and meteorological–oceanographic data production centres in Creil, Haguenau and Toulouse. In particular, this refurbishment is designed to meet the need for the increased volume and transmission rates involved in the visualisation of all the environmental data on the future GEODE4D portal.
Vertical aerial maps extended to include uninterrupted panorama imagery and measurable oblique images
Nearmap, a location content provider specializing in high-resolution aerial maps, announces the release of new forms of location content — Nearmap Panorama and Nearmap Oblique — available through a new MapBrowser interface.
Nearmap has long provided vertical imagery (also known as orthorectified imagery) covering about 70 percent of the U.S. population. Today, it extends its location content to include new aerial geospatial data services—Nearmap Panorama and Nearmap Oblique imagery.
Nearmap Panorama is unique since it enables users to view perspective maps in all cardinal directions for small or large areas in uninterrupted fashion. Users do not need to jump from one image to another and, in the process, lose context.
They can easily navigate, pan and zoom across any size geography, quickly analyze perspective maps and make faster decisions that impact government and commercial operations — all within an instantly accessible, 100 percent cloud-based environment.
“Nearmap Panorama is delivered via our new, highly intuitive MapBrowser interface, enabling users to effortlessly visualize and navigate across regions or local areas in an uninterrupted way,” said Patrick Quigley, SVP and GM for Nearmap North America. “Our users can inspect aerial location content faster than ever before using Nearmap Panorama. Consistent with past location content, Nearmap Panorama is delivered in high-resolution, 3-inch GSD.”
Nearmap Obliques enable users to interactively inspect and measure the height of features, such as buildings and terrain, from all cardinal directions. Nearmap Oblique images are also accessed through the new MapBrowser.
“Our customers need location content aligned with their requirements,” said Natasha Ridley, product manager for MapBrowser. “For example, with Nearmap Oblique images, government organizations conducting property appraisal can accurately value property using measurement and detailed, tilt-angled perspectives. At the same time, commercial organizations interested in engineering and construction can quickly select a north, south, east or west orientation, measure heights of buildings and better plan changes.”
Users working within MapBrowser can switch from Nearmap Vertical to Nearmap Panorama or Nearmap Oblique location content. “We’ve added new features that our customers are going to be very excited about,” said Ridley. “For example, now users can export our imagery with measurements added. The saved image provides the whole picture, which is very useful in proposal development and communicating specific aspects of the aerial maps essential in planning and operations.”
“These enhancements represent a major step forward in both our location content and delivery capabilities. There’s also more on the way,” said Robert Carroll, VP of 3D commercial and government for Nearmap. “This imagery is produced by our patented HyperCamera2 technology, enabling us to continue to proactively survey the U.S. urban areas including 50 percent of the population with obliques while also producing high-resolution 3D content. Our plan is to extend our leadership position by introducing Nearmap 3D, combining ‘off-the-shelf’ digital surface models (DSM), textured 3D mesh and 3D point clouds in the near future.”
Nearmap will be exhibiting at Autodesk University 2017 in Las Vegas from Nov. 14-16 at booth A503 in the Sands Expo/Venetian Hotel. Nearmap is also hosting a breakout session (“Aerial Imagery Transforming AEC”) on Nov. 15 at 9:15 a.m.
Nearmap is also exhibiting at the International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM) at the Long Beach Convention & Entertainment Center in California from Nov. 13-15. Interested parties can visit Nearmap at booth 441, exhibit hall A.
Play ball! GeoVisual Search finds baseball stadiums. (Image: Descartes Labs)
Where are all the windmills on Earth? Or oil derricks? How about baseball stadiums?
You could scan through the millions of satellite images snapped by hundreds of satellites now circling the planet. Or you could try Descartes Labs’ demo search engine.
Satellites are snapping images of the Earth every day. Alongside Planet Inc. and DigitalGlobe satellites, constellations are planned from companies such as Urthecast and Astro Digital (the latter launched its first pair of satellites in July). But how do we make use of all of that data in an organized, searchable way?
New Mexico startup Descartes Labs has created a cloud-based supercomputing platform to apply machine intelligence to massive data sets, using satellite imagery to model complex systems on the planet.
While Descartes started by focusing on forestry and agriculture, its new tool Geovisual Search allows users to find similar-looking objects of any kind all over the globe. Just click anywhere on the map and a red tile appears, enabling users to search for similar objects. “To do this, we use deep learning, a form of artificial intelligence that is loosely inspired by the structure of the brain,” Descartes Labs explains.
“Last year, a team at Carnegie Mellon University applied the principles of visual search to seven cities around the world in a demo called Terrapattern. We were impressed with their work and wondered: could we do this not just for a few cities, but for the entire globe?”
Terrapattern was designed as a prototype for scanning geographical areas for specific visual features. Its focus is on helping people identify, characterize and track indicators that have not been detected or measured previously, and which have sociological, humanitarian, scientific or cultural significance. So far, it focuses only on specific cities: Pittsburgh, San Francisco, New York City, Detroit, Berlin, Miami and Austin.
Terrapattern locates cul-de-sacs in Pittsburgh. (Image: Terrapattern)
Inspired by Terrapattern, Descartes goes farther. The company has built three demo maps on three different scales.
The continental United States — This map uses aerial imagery at 1-meter per pixel from the U.S. National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP). The high-resolution imagery enables detection of smaller items such as orchards.
China — This map uses satellite imagery at 4-meter resolution from Planet. Though the resolution isn’t as high as the NAIP map over the U.S., Planet’s satellites will soon be providing daily pictures of the globe. In this map, you’ll be able to find solar farms and stadiums.
The entire world — This map uses Landsat 8 and is at 15-meter resolution. Though much coarser than the other maps, you’ll be able to find larger scale objects such pivot irrigation and suburbs.
Every time you click on a tile, GeoVisual Search looks over the entire map for visually similar tiles. At this point, GeoVisual Search isn’t trying to get an accurate count of objects such as windmills. Instead, a search will return the top results, up to 1,000.
However, Descartes Labs’ research on teaching the computer visual patterns is an important step on the road to counting objects accurately, the company said in a blog announcing the search engine.
“We use a type of artificial intelligence called deep learning, which is loosely inspired by neurons and the structure of the brain. For every tile on the map we run it through a deep learning algorithm that creates a fingerprint for that tile. Basically, you can think of it as abstracting some of the qualities of that tile in a way that allows the computer to begin representing the image like a human does: with colors, edges, and other features of the image. When you click on something, we compare every other image to that fingerprint and try to return the ones that look like each other.
“Our research will start to focus on object detection at scale: how do we look for wind turbines, derricks, oil tanks, buildings and other important objects all over the planet. For these objects, we’ll use the underlying principles of visual similarity to teach the computer what a wind turbine looks like in all of its forms and then try to do an accurate count of all the turbines globally. Obviously this is a very difficult task, but we think we’ve got the science to tackle this problem.
“Once we’ve counted objects, we can start looking at maps through time and see what changes — how many new wind turbines are there and where are they, for example.”
Descartes is inviting geospatial developers to take part in the search engine’s development. “If you have ideas about what you’d like to do with GeoVisual Search today and have a team of developers who are experts at machine learning and/or geospatial data, drop us a line for early access to our underlying platform.”
Descartes is evolving the demo, so a release date hasn’t yet been set. Read about the tech behind the demo.
The northernmost Joint Polar Satellite System Common Ground System station in Svalbard, Norway. (Photo: Raytheon)
Newest version of Raytheon’s Joint Polar Satellite System Common Ground System is now operational
Raytheon’s next-generation Common Ground System for the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS CGS 2.0) is now operational, supporting 11 polar-orbiting satellites and delivering observations to NOAA’s National Weather Service almost 50 percent faster than before.
Svalbard, Norway, is the location of the northernmost Joint Polar Satellite System Common Ground System station.
JPSS CGS 2.0 was designed to support the upcoming NASA launch of NOAA’s JPSS-1 satellite on Nov. 14.
“The new ground system significantly improves the mission capabilities of the JPSS program,” said Matt Gilligan, vice president of Raytheon’s Navigation and Environmental Solutions. “It can handle even more data from the full constellation of satellites now and in the future.”
Developed by NASA for NOAA, the JPSS CGS collects and disseminates observations from polar-orbiting weather satellites from the United States, Europe and Japan.
The polar orbiters provide critical weather and environmental data to ensure meteorologists and forecasters have robust, reliable information to make timely and accurate weather predictions that help save lives, protect property and decrease the devastating economic impact caused by severe weather.
SimActive Inc., a developer of photogrammetry software, has launched an automated solution for direct georeferencing from real-time kinematic (RTK) positioning.
Within the new workflow feature, users can achieve get high accuracy in projects without the use of ground control points (GCP), saving time in collecting and processing data.
Martin Instrument, a reseller of SimActive and surveying equipment, is benefitting from the automation. “Direct georeferencing greatly helps reducing cost for applications like corridor mapping,” said Mike Minick, vice president of sales at Martin Instrument. “The new automated option within SimActive software for direct georeferencing greatly facilitates the user workflow.”
“With RTK GPS available on drones, the use of direct georeferencing is growing within the industry,” said Louis Simard, CTO of SimActive. “Correlator3D allows users to maximize their hardware and software investment.”
For a live demonstration at the Commercial UAV Show (Nov. 15-16, London, United Kingdom), visit SimActive’s booth or send an email to [email protected].
A new tool that gives users a detailed view of the world’s mountains is now available from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).
The Global Mountain Explorer can help users ranging from hikers to scientists, resource managers and policy makers seeking information on these prominent yet often understudied landscapes.
Mountains occupy from 12 to 31 percent of the land surface of the Earth, but despite their importance, few attempts have been made to scientifically define and map these regions worldwide with detail, the USGS said.
The Global Mountain Explorer “allows anyone with access to the Internet to explore where mountains are, whether they are low or high, scattered or continuous, snowy or snow-free,” said USGS ecosystems geographer Roger Sayre, who led the project.
Mountain Explorer provides information from global scales down to specific mountains, such as Borah Peak, Idaho, pictured here. (Public domain)
“Mountain Explorer users can visualize and compare in one place and for the first time the three major global mountain maps that have been produced,” he said.
Mountains provide significant water, timber and mineral resources, and food, fiber and fuel products. They are home to diverse ecosystems and wildlife and are valued for their esthetic beauty and recreational offerings.
Mountain areas are also prone to natural hazards. But despite their importance, surprisingly few attempts have been made to scientifically define and map these regions worldwide with detail.
The USGS developed the Global Mountain Explorer, in partnership with Esri, and three organizations at the University of Bern in Switzerland — the Center for Development and Environment, the Global Mountain Biodiversity Assessment and the Mountain Research Initiative.
Twilight image of snow-covered Mount Shasta with city lights visible at its base. The Global Mountain Explorer allows users to view mountains and surrounding terrain. (Public domain)
The tool was developed as part of a Group on Earth Observations initiative to accurately delineate mountain regions using best available data. It is intended to provide information on the global distribution and a variety of mountain data with a resolution 16 times more detailed than previous mapping efforts.
Users can select an area by zooming in or by typing a place name like Mt. Kilimanjaro to view its elevation and type. They can also select from a number of backdrops — satellite images, topographic maps or political boundary maps— on which to display the different types of mountain classes. A tutorial showing the full features for the Global Map Explorer is shown below.
The NMAS will be the next-generation version of the IAFC’s Mutual Aid Net tool built in 2008. The NMAS will use Esri ArcGIS and Intermedix’s WebEOC, a crisis information management software, to manage and track emergency services resources during mutual-aid responses.
During large-scale emergencies and disasters, it is critical for response personnel to have easy access to a mutual-aid system for managing their resources. WebEOC will allow IAFC to manage information sharing, event reporting and task management in a central, web-based environment that allows IAFC to connect to partner agencies and organizations during response efforts.
The use of spatial data to identify and respond quickly and effectively is also paramount. Esri’s ArcGIS platform brings mutual aid management data into a location context, integrating that information into spatial analysis technology that emergency responders around the world use every day.
The IAFC has long been the leader in supporting state and local fire and emergency management communities in disaster management. The current Mutual Aid Net is used to identify, request and deploy resources for mutual aid support.
The NMAS will use the latest technology to help decision makers accomplish these tasks faster, easier and more accurately.
The use of Intermedix’s WebEOC and Esri’s ArcGIS platforms provides information sharing, decision support and situational awareness capabilities to jurisdictions, regions and countries around the globe.
The foundation of NMAS will be on the WebEOC platform which through the ArcGIS Extension for WebEOC will provide access and integration to Esri online tools and dashboards.
The result of this integration is the near real-time data availability of WebEOC information within ArcGIS Online applications, without the need for any development, middleware or technical expertise.
“The IAFC is extremely pleased to partner with Intermedix and Esri to build the next generation of the National Mutual Aid System,” said Tommy Hicks, IAFC’s Chief Programs & Technology Officer and Assistant Executive Director. “Ensuring that emergency managers and responders have real-time information and resources at their fingertips is an essential to protecting their communities from harm.”
“Identifying the status and availability of resources for mutual aid support has always been challenging,” said Russ Johnson, Esri global director, emergency response. “In today’s environment with increasingly complex multi-jurisdictional incidents, this need is greater than ever. Through the leadership of IAFC and the partnership between Esri and Intermedix, the ability to know the availability of required mutual aid resources and immediately request them will be realized. This will be a major step forward in supporting public safety agencies throughout the country.”
“Intermedix looks forward to our partnership with IAFC and an expansion of our partnership with Esri,” said Bob Watson, Intermedix president of preparedness solutions. “Our mission is to serve those who save lives, and the National Mutual Aid Net project is perfectly aligned with that mission. The only effective way to respond to emergencies is through collaborations and partnerships between public and private organizations. The National Mutual Aid Net takes that principle and puts it into practice. We are honored to be a part of this undertaking.”
Orbital Witness will receive a voucher worth €50,000 for the acquisition of satellite data and will benefit from both technical and business coaching.
The competition encourages startups to innovate and develop new applications primarily based on Airbus’ satellite data. The winning British startup Orbital Witness proposes to use satellite imagery to provide a new perspective for legal due diligence in real estate.
Launched on May 30, the goal of the four-month challenge was to create added value for new businesses focusing on themes identified as important topics for the global population, ranging from forestry and agriculture to smart cities and maritime.
More than 130 projects from five continents were entered for the competition, among which 23 startups were pre-selected based on their originality and relevance as well as their technical and commercial feasibility.
These “semi-finalists” entered a subsequent round to further develop the proposals — this ended with a second selection phase in which the six finalists were chosen.
During the final, held Oct. 20 at the Airbus PlayLab in Toulouse, the six finalists presented their projects in front of representatives of different Airbus departments, including strategy, innovation, and marketing and sales.
The other finalists were:
23insights (the Netherlands), which tracks and predicts the human footprint in forests.
Ozius (Australia), which creates new landscape intelligence by fusing a variety of remote-sensing data to identify where the environmental risks and opportunities occurred in the past, where they are today, and project where they will occur in the future.
Ursa Space Systems Inc. (U.S.), which utilizes radar satellite data to deliver global and unbiased economic intelligence to energy and financial enterprises, providing reliable information about areas of the world that are traditionally opaque.
Qirate (Italy), which enhances position appeal for boosting business locations and helps people find their ideal place to live by rating the quality of life.
Kermap (France), which uses satellite imagery to support the ecological transition of cities.
The runner-up projects also received satellite data vouchers: €20,000 for 23insights, €15,000 for Ozius, €10, 000 for Ursa and €5,000 for Qirate and Kermap.
Using live data from USGS and Waze, a new Esri interactive map visualizes active wildfire locations and traffic alerts for Northern California.
The map incorporates a new mapping technique to group traffic alerts at locations where there is a high density of alerts. This method enables faster and more effective visual analysis in areas where there are many alerts that would normally overlap. Zoom in on the map to reveal the latest individual traffic alerts.
Active fire data displays the locations of large fire incidents in Northern California. Data is provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service and The Geospatial Multi-Agency Coordination Group, and is intended to give near real-time understanding of the situation on the ground.
Location and status of active fires is updated throughout the day as new information is gathered by first responders.
Data from Waze is reported by users of Waze and updated every 2 minutes. This data, provided by Waze through the Connected Citizens Program, contains filtered data for affected area including system-generated traffic jams and user-reported traffic incidents (including jams, accidents, hazards, construction, potholes, roadkill, stopped vehicles, objects on road, and missing signs).
DigitalGlobe has released high-resolution satellite images of the wildfires burning in Northern California. These wildfires have killed at least 21 people, destroyed at least 3,500 structures, and burned more than 115,000 acres.
The Oct. 10 images were collected using the Shortwave Infrared (SWIR) sensor on DigitalGlobe’s WorldView-3 satellite, which is uniquely able to pierce through the wildfire smoke to see where the fires are burning on the ground. For comparison, the ground and the fire line are completely obstructed by smoke in the natural color image of the same area (see the larger overview image on the first slide).
The Oct. 11 images were taken by DigitalGlobe’s GeoEye-1 satellite. Some of these are natural color, while others are shown in the Very Near Infrared (VNIR), where burned areas appear gray and black and healthy vegetation is red.
Additionally, DigitalGlobe has activated its Open Data Program, which provides imagery to support recovery efforts in the wake of large-scale natural disasters. Pre- and post-wildfire imagery of the affected areas are available to emergency responders on the Santa Rosa wildfires page.
Old Faithful is Yellowstone National Park’s most famous landmark. Millions of visitors come to the park every year to see the geyser erupt every 44 to 125 minutes. But despite Old Faithful’s fame, relatively little was known about the geologic anatomy of the structure and the fluid pathways that fuel the geyser below the surface. Until now.
University of Utah scientists have mapped the near-surface geology around Old Faithful, revealing the reservoir of heated water that feeds the geyser’s surface vent and how the ground shaking behaves in between eruptions. The map was made possible by a dense network of portable seismographs and by new seismic analysis techniques. The results are published in Geophysical Research Letters. Doctoral student Sin-Mei Wu is the first author.
For Robert Smith, a long-time Yellowstone researcher and distinguished research professor of geology and geophysics, the study is the culmination of more than a decade of planning and comes as he celebrates his 60th year working in America’s first national park.
“Here’s the iconic geyser of Yellowstone,” Smith says. “It’s known around the world, but the complete geologic plumbing of Yellowstone’s Upper Geyser Basin has not been mapped nor have we studied how the timing of eruptions is related to precursor ground tremors before eruptions.”
A portable seismometer used to map the geology beneath Old Faithful. (Photo: Paul Gabrielsen)
Small seismometers
Old Faithful is an iconic example of a hydrothermal feature, and particularly of the features in Yellowstone National Park, which is underlain by two active magma reservoirs at depths of 5 to 40 km depth that provide heat to the overlying near-surface groundwater. In some places within Yellowstone, the hot water manifests itself in pools and springs. In others, it takes the form of explosive geysers.
Dozens of structures surround Old Faithful, including hotels, a gift shop and a visitor’s center. Some of these buildings, the Park Service has found, are built over thermal features that result in excessive heat beneath the built environment. As part of their plan to manage the Old Faithful area, the Park Service asked University of Utah scientists to conduct a geologic survey of the area around the geyser.
For years, study co-authors Jamie Farrell and Fan-Chi Lin, along with Smith, have worked to characterize the magma reservoirs deep beneath Yellowstone. Although geologists can use seismic data from large earthquakes to see features deep in the earth, the shallow subsurface geology of the park has remained a mystery, because mapping it out would require capturing everyday miniature ground movement and seismic energy on a much smaller scale. “We try to use continuous ground shaking produced by humans, cars, wind, water and Yellowstone’s hydrothermal boilings and convert it into our signal,” Lin says. “We can extract a useful signal from the ambient background ground vibration.”
To date, the University of Utah has placed 30 permanent seismometers around the park to record ground shaking and monitor for earthquakes and volcanic events. The cost of these seismometers, however, can easily exceed $10,000. Small seismometers, developed by FairfieldNodal for the oil and gas industry, reduce the cost to less than $2,000 per unit. They’re small white canisters about six inches high and are totally autonomous and self-contained. “You just take it out and stick it in the ground,” Smith says.
In 2015, with the new instruments, the Utah team deployed 133 seismometers in the Old Faithful and Geyser Hill areas for a two-week campaign.
The sensors picked up bursts of intense seismic tremors around Old Faithful, about 60 minutes long, separated by about 30 minutes of quiet. When Farrell presents these patterns, he often asks audiences at what point they think the eruption of Old Faithful takes place. Surprisingly, it’s not at the peak of shaking. It’s at the end, just before everything goes quiet again.
After an eruption, the geyser’s reservoir fills again with hot water, Farrell explains. “As that cavity fills up, you have a lot of hot pressurized bubbles,” he says. “When they come up, they cool off really rapidly and they collapse and implode.” The energy released by those implosions causes the tremors leading up to an eruption.
One scientist’s noise is another scientist’s signal
Typically, researchers create a seismic signal using an active source, such as swinging a hammer onto a metal plate on the ground or setting off an explosion. Lin and Wu developed the data analysis method that would help find useful signals among the seismic noise without disturbing the sensitive environment in the Upper Geyser Basin. Wu says she was able to use the hydrothermal features themselves as a seismic source, to study how seismic energy propagates by correlating signals recorded at the sensor close to a persistent source to other sensors. “It’s amazing that you can use the hydrothermal source to image the structure here,” she says.
The model of Old Faithful’s hydrogeological system suggested by the study’s results. (Image: Sin-Mei Wu)
When analyzing data from the seismic sensors, the researchers noticed that tremor signals from Old Faithful were not reaching the western boardwalk. Seismic waves extracted from another hydrothermal feature in the north slowed down and scattered significantly in nearly the same area suggesting somewhere west of Old Faithful was an underground feature that affects the seismic waves in an anomalous way. With a dense network of seismometers, the team could determine the shape, size, and location of the feature, which they believe is Old Faithful’s hydrothermal reservoir.
Wu estimates that the reservoir, a network of cracks and fractures through which water flows, has a diameter of around 200 meters, a little larger than the University of Utah’s Rice-Eccles Stadium, and can hold approximately 300,000 cubic meters of water, or more than 79 million gallons. By comparison, each eruption of Old Faithful releases around 30 m3 of water, or nearly 8,000 gallons. “Although it’s a rough estimation, we were surprised that it was so large,” Wu says.
Further work
The team is far from done answering questions about Yellowstone. They returned for another seismic survey in November 2016 and are planning their 2017 deployment, to begin after the park roads close for the winter. Wu is looking at how subsurface structure and hence the propagation of seismic waves can change with time. Farrell is using the team’s seismic data to produce even higher resolution subsurface images and predict how earthquake waves might reverberate through the region.
Smith is looking forward to conducting similar analysis in Norris Geyser Basin, the hottest geothermal area of the park. Lin says that the University of Utah’s research program in Yellowstone owes much to Smith’s decades-long relationship with the park, enabling new discoveries. “You need new techniques,” Lin says, “but also those long-term relationships.”
The full study can be found here. The research was funded by the National Science Foundation and by King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, the Brinson Foundation and the Carrico Fund. Fan-Chi Lin is the Principal Investigator.
Paul Gabrielsen is a science writer at University of Utah Communications.
