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The AER is Alberta’s decision-making body for applications for energy development, monitoring for compliance assurance, decommissioning of developments, and all other aspects of energy resource activities. AER set up a regional network, including Libra VSAT systems, to monitor induced seismic activity in real time across the province of Alberta.

Borealis GeoPower’s Canoe Reach project near Valemount, British Columbia is on track to become the first geothermal power and heat project in British Columbia. Nanometrics is working with Borealis and the University of Calgary’s Department of Geosciences to get an understanding of baseline seismicity in the area before any major resource development begins. Nanometrics is providing Borealis GeoPower with continuous on-line data acquisition using an array of Trillium Compact seismometers and Centaur digitizers. We’re also processing continuous time-series data including the provision of local magnitudes, location and depth estimates for events detected by the system.

Nanometrics has a lengthy history with CTBTO, having worked closely with the global organization to design and set up their global monitoring network that includes infrasound, hydroacoustic sensors, in addition to the 50 primary and 120 auxiliary seismic stations, which monitor for shock waves resulting from manmade explosions.

GEOICE, led by Jeremy Paul Winberry of Central Washington University, will provide increased observational capabilities and logistical efficiencies needed to seismically image the structures and dynamic behavior of both the solid Earth and overlying ice in remote ice-covered regions. Nanometrics Meridian Compact postholes were deployed at Taku Glacier, Alaska during the summer of 2015 and retrieved during the summer of 2016.

Ireland Array is an array of broadband seismic stations that was deployed across Ireland by the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies Geophysics department. The backbone component of the array is formed by 20 stations, equipped with Trillium 120PA seismometers. The stations were installed between 2010 and 2012, and were deployed for 5 years.

ETH Zurich is a science, technology, engineering and mathematics university in the city of Switzerland. ETH maintains a pool of instruments for temporary deployment and also hosts the Swiss Seismological Network, which includes permanent broadband and strong motion stations. The network monitors of seismic activity in Switzerland and its neighbouring countries, assesses seismic hazard in Switzerland, warns and informs the authorities, the public, and the media, undertakes research and teaching and oversees Swiss involvement in the international monitoring of the nuclear test ban treaty. The Swiss network includes legacy products Trillium 240 vault seismometers and Taurus digitizers as well as Centaur digitizers and Trillium 120 borehole seismometers.

Nanometrics has been engaged by the Geological Survey of Israel to design, deploy and operate a 120+ station national earthquake early warning system. The network will include Titan accelerometers and TitanSMA accelerographs, Trillium 120 seismometers and Centaur digital recorders.

GeoScience BC and their partners (the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, BC Oil and Gas Commission and Natural Resources Canada) wanted to better understand the effects of hydraulic fracturing in the province’s Horn River Basin area. The network included Trillium 120 Posthole seismometers and Libra VSAT real-time satellite communication system. Because the Trillium 120 Posthole is such a sensitive instrument with lower detection thresholds, GeoSciences BC could distinguish natural from induced seismicity. The network is managed by Nanometrics, with real-time data being sent to Natural Resources Canada and eventually the IRIS Data Management Center.

The Transportable Array (TA) is one of four key observatories that make up IRIS’s Earthscope USArray. The TA is a network of 400 broadband seismographs and atmospheric sensors that have been operated at temporary sites across the United States from west to east in a regular grid pattern, beginning in August 2007. The Transportable Array is currently using Trillium 120 vault seismometers, Trillium 240 vault seismometers, Trillium 120 posthole seismometers and Titan accelerometers.

OIINK is a flexible array experiment led by Gary Pavlis and Hersh Gilbert of Indiana University, designed to help improve understanding of the deep geological structure and seismic activity in North America’s continental interior and to help us better understand—and better prepare for—the hazards associated with future earthquakes in the region. The three-year deployment of 60 Trillium Compact Posthole stations in two groups (for a total of 120 planned sites), centered on the Illinois Basin.

The Caribbean Earthquake Tsunami network monitors seismic activity in the West Indies. The network rapidly analyzes seismic data to determine the possibility of a tsunami occurring so that warnings can be sent to affected areas. The network contains 20 Libra VSAT stations, with a hub on Martinique.

LIGO first approached Nanometrics in 2008 while preparing for the overhaul of their existing detectors, set to begin in 2010. LIGO needed instrumentation that would be exceptionally reliable as the detectors were to be embedded deep within the innards of kilometres of vacuum tunnels. Any repair job could take months to complete. We eagerly accepted the custom engineering project, adjusting the Trillium 240 for LIGO’s needs, walking them through the technology and helping with the testing. The final product was delivered in 2010, the year LIGO began their four-year redesign of their interferometers. The new sensors were 10 times more sensitive than the previous versions, and were successful within mere days of their first use. We are thrilled to have been part of this landmark scientific discovery.

In 2016, Natural Resources Canada chose Nanometrics to recapitalize and modernize the equipment used in the Canadian National Seismograph Network, a cross-Canada network operated by the Geological Survey of Canada. The $4.6 million contract includes the purchase of Trillium 120 QA seismometers for monitoring regional seismicity, Titan accelerometers for monitoring strong ground motion, Centaur digitizers, associated software and training.

In February 2016, the Government of British Columbia announced an investment of $5 million for the development of an earthquake early warning system for southwestern British Columbia. The first sensor, deployed in June 2016, is a Titan accelerometer, encased in a glass sphere to withstand the pressure in water depths of 850 m at Barkley Canyon, off the southern coast of British Columbia. The system will be installed, tested and delivered to Emergency Management BC by March 2019.

The PNSN is a joint venture of the University of Washington and the University of Oregon that monitors earthquake and volcanic activity across the Pacific Northwest. The network is the second-largest in the US, consisting of over 300 stations. The network features both TitanSMA strong-motion accelerographs and Trillium Cascadias.

The Permafrost Active Layer Seismic Interferometry Experiment was conducted at the Poker Flat Research Range in Fairbanks, Alaska by Robert Abbott and Hunter Knox of the Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The experiment was designed to monitor changes in active layer thickness in real time. Data are derived primarily from seismic data streaming from seven Nanometrics Trillium Posthole seismometers directly buried in the upper section of the permafrost. Results from the Horizontal to Vertical Spectral Ratio (HVSR) analysis shows the method’s effectiveness at determining the active layer’s thickness with a single station.

Brazilian mining company Samarco is working with Nanometrics to monitor tailings dams to gain accurate and detailed data regarding seismic activities in the region. The network consists of Trillium Compact 20s seismometers and Centaur digital recorders.

The Saudi Geological Survey (SGS) currently operates a 200+ station, world-class seismic monitoring network. Nanometrics provides full technical support and network monitoring services for SGS.

Nanometrics original move into the OBS market segment came when SCRIPPS selected the Trillium 240 seismometer (a legacy product) for their deep long-term deployment OBS fleet. Multiple one year deployments of the SCRIPPS systems demonstrated the exceptional performance of these systems with >99.9% data availability from the sensor packages over all deployments. SCRIPPS and Woods Hole selected the Trillium Compact for the Cascadia OBS initiative.

We are monitoring seismicity in the Montney region for Seven Generations Energy. The five Trillium Compact stations will assist Seven Generations in their voluntary monitoring of induced seismicity in the region of their Kakwa River Project in Alberta, Canada.

Tex-Net is a statewide seismic monitoring led by the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas at Austin. The network includes 23 permanent stations that feature Trillium 120 borehole seismometers and 37 temporary stations using Trillium Compact posthole seismometers. Tex-Net will help locate and determine the origins of earthquakes; the temporary stations will allow investigators to move stations for site-specific assessments as needed.

After five decades of nuclear weapons production at the Hanford Site in Washington state, one of the largest nuclear cleanup efforts in the world began in 1989. The Hanford Seismic Network, supplemented by the Eastern Washington Regional Network, features the Trillium Cascadia, which measures both strong and weak motion in a single instrument. The data collected is published and used by Hanford Site contractors involved in waste management, natural phenomena hazards assessments, and engineering design and construction.

We are proud of our long-standing relationship with the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the world’s principal global source of data and information for earthquake locations, earthquake hazard mitigation and earthquake emergency response. We were awarded our first five-year call-off contract with USGS in 2010. The second five-year call-off contract was awarded in 2016. USGS operates the Advanced National Seismic System across the US and, in partnership with IRIS, the 150+ station Global Seismic Network, which includes many Nanometrics seismometers. Most recently, USGS has ordered several Trillium 360 seismometers, in vault, posthole and borehole form factors.

The SEISMOGLAC project, led by Andreas Köhler, Department of Geosciences, University of Oslo, contributed to the improved understanding of processes such as iceberg calving and glacier surging using seismic data as they relate to climate change. Thirteen years of data from permanent stations on the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard supplemented data from a temporary array including Trillium 120 PA’s deployed between May and mid-September 2013.

M. Jeffrey Mei from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and MIT and his team developed a multiple-station technique for localizing glacier calving events was applied to Helheim Glacier in southeastern Greenland. Using the seismic data from Nanometrics Trillium 120 and three Nanometrics Trillium 240 broadband seismometers, researchers generated a catalogue of 11 calving locations, showing that calving preferentially happens at the northern end of Helheim Glacier.