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Historical Timeline 1970 – 1980: Expansion
The seventies
saw great expansion of research facilities at IGPP, with the development
of the Piñon
Flat Observatory (PFO). Work at PFO began in 1970, at which
time the land was owned by the U.S. Forest Service; it was purchased
by the University in 1980 with generous support from Cecil
and Ida Green. Operation of the observatory is now supported
by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Geological Survey,
the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS), and
the Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC).
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| The Piñon
Flat Observatory |
The Observatory occupies 160 acres of land in the mountains just
south of Palm Springs, and was designed primarily to monitor the
movements of the faults upon which earthquakes occur. Utilizing
laser technology, the slow build up of strain prior to earthquakes
has been continuously recorded since 1971, and the analysis of these
records has already significantly improved our views about the way
these motions occur. The Observatory is nationally recognized as
the most complete and sophisticated in the country. It is a unique
facility as (a) it comprises laser strain instrumentation, superconducting
gravimeters, as well as more conventional seismic instruments, and
(b) it is located adjacent to the most active fault in California
(the San Jacinto), and as such offers an ideal setting to test the
hypotheses of earthquake prediction.
Project
IDA (International Deployment of Accelerometers) is headquartered
at IGPP and is an international program for the deployment of very
long period seismometers. Started in 1975 and made possible by the
generosity of Ida and Cecil Green, the network is designed as a
global antenna to study the long period waves associated with moderate
to large earthquakes, free oscillations of the Earth, and Earth
and ocean tides. There are currently 36 broadband stations deployed
worldwide, which send digital data to a central data bank at IGPP
for unpacking and re-formatting. Initially, the long period seismometers
were made by adapting LaCoste & Romberg accelerometers, which
were upgraded in the early 1990's to three component seismometers
from funds provided by Cecil and Ida Green. Project IDA has undergone
expansion since it's development, but especially after the IRIS
(Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology) was formed
in 1984 and IGPP became the IDA/IRIS network operations center.
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| Read
about the next period in IGPP's history; 1980-1990. Click
here |
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Interview
with Walter Munk, Professor Emeritus at IGPP.
Click here |
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