DONE!

Steve Malone
July 4, 2014

End of the main deployment map of stations (July 3):

And now for some field reports

(July 3) Today Team Kelso did the official end-of-2.5-weeks-of-continuous-seismo-station-installation group hug, after a pleasant morning of hangar cleaning and truck packing. 63 stations are in the ground, with 7 more to go once the snow melts a little more and the USFS sends us the permit for 5 sites. The first station was installed 06/18, the last on 07/02. 63 stations in 15 days translates to just over 4 per day, not a bad clip given some of the adversity faced by Team iMUSH -- which included inadvertent use of slow-drying cement, slow finalization of several critical permits, 10 flats, 2 busted side-view mirrors, 1 set of torn shoulder ligaments, 4 moving days, several very rainy days, one extremely hot day, the constant distraction of the World Cup (which mostly went unwatched by Team iMUSH), and the slow but steady decline in team size (18 at the start, 7 at the end) as various team members had to return to their real lives and say sayonara to the seismologist's equivalent of band camp.

And so now it is Team Kelso's turn to say sayonara -- until 2 years from now when we get to do it all over again in reverse (won't that be fun).

(July 2) It was very hot in the field today, which made for some slow going. Things got so bad that one team decided to invoke their heat-stroke-mitigation plan, which involved retreating to a nearby restaurant where they lowered their internal temperatures courtesy of a/c and cool refreshing iced tea while waiting for their extraordinarily wet cement mix to dry. It was purely coincidental that this mitigation strategy was enacted at the same time as the US World Cup game.

Casualties: Two flats (both on Weyerhauser roads), which brings the number of iMUSH flats to an even 10 (one per 6.3 installed sites). Drilling a bit deeper (as we iMUSHers are wont to do), 9 flats happened on Weyerhauser roads vs just one on USFS/DNR/Pope/Interstate roads; 3 flats were on USGS rigs, 3 on UW rigs, and 4 on the one Enterprise rig; no flats occurred when it was rainy; all occurred on days when the U.S. did not win at the World Cup; none occurred at the hangar. Thus a clear flat-hazard-mitigation-plan for future iMUSH fieldwork is to do as much site servicing as possible at the hangar. But, if site servicing requires driving, then do so only when it is raining, use only USFS rigs (or possibly a Hertz rental), only drive to non-Weyerhauser sites, & use drones to service Weyerhauser sites. As for the risk of working on days when the US wins at the WC... waah.

If all goes according to plan, at the end of 07/02 all permitted sites will be installed except for 1. Remaining sites include 5 USFS sites that are not yet permitted (three to be installed by CVO, two by UW), 1 USFS site that is still inaccessible due to snow (to be installed by UW), and one site on private land that has yet to be finalized (to be installed by CVO). 

Extended plan is for Team Kelso to decommission itself on 07/03 after cleaning out the hangar and loading gear for future installations into UW & CVO rigs.

 

(July 1) All teams reported seeing a bright orb in the sky (some have even given it a name; "the sun") and experiencing an odd sensation that, upon some deep communal reflection, we decided was consistent with the condition known as "hot".

Here are some photos form staging areas and efforts.

 

Equipment shipping cases in a storage area

equipment and supplies being organized

Text by Seth, photos by Alicia.