At Nanometrics, our unwavering commitment to delivering the highest quality seismic instrumentation, systems and solutions is a journey of continuous innovation. This dedication recently led us to establish a unique and powerful new asset: our dedicated quiet testing site. This facility, a short drive from our global headquarters in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, is far more than just a place for tests; it manifests our deep expertise in station design and deployment, our commitment to pioneering new technologies, and our proactive approach to understanding the real-world challenges our customers face.
The Genesis of Unrivalled Precision: Why Quiet Matters
The Earth's subtle vibrations, the very signals we aim to capture, can easily be obscured by environmental noise from human activity, traffic, electronic noise, or even building infrastructure. For decades, Nanometrics has been at the forefront of designing instruments capable of detecting the faintest seismic signals, such as our world-leading Trillium 360 GSN (Global Seismic Network), which enables the collection of some of the richest seismic datasets.
While our global headquarters centralizes most of our research, development, and quality manufacturing, we have always had additional quiet testing sites for the most sensitive measurements, often a series of disparate locations based on deployment type, leading to maintenance of multiple sites and specialized visits. The need for a consolidated, permanent and highly controlled low-noise environment, capable of accommodating every type of instrument, became paramount to facilitate ongoing research and development.
Walking in Our Customers Footsteps: Understanding Real-World Challenges
Perhaps one of the most significant aspects of this new site is its ability to directly mirror the remote and often challenging deployment environments our customers navigate daily. Whether it's a permanent vault, a borehole installation, a direct bury site, or even a temporary portable setup, our clients often deploy instruments in locations with limited infrastructure. Our new site allows us to replicate these conditions, practicing with remote power systems, testing communication via cellular or satellite links, and refining installation techniques relevant to global, national and regional seismic networks. Customers will also benefit from training materials developed based on this site, and may have field visits as part of onsite training provided during a visit to our headquarters.
Engineered for Excellence: Building Our Remote Testing Haven
The selection and construction of this new site underscores Nanometrics' comprehensive expertise in designing and deploying seismic stations – an expertise deeply rooted in our global field operations that helps our customers in over 100 countries around the world. We identified this ideal location due to its direct access to a vast granite bedrock formation. Building a vault directly on bedrock on the Canadian Shield ensures superior coupling to the Earth, providing the purest possible seismic signal transmission and minimizing interference. This choice allows us to quickly assess subtle seismic signals without concern for movement between the overburden and bedrock, and facilitates efficient borehole installations.
Nanometrics Solutions and Research and Development teams joined forces to design the site and coordinate specialized vendors to bring our vision to life. This hands-on approach reflects the practical knowledge our field operations team has amassed over decades of performing countless installations for customers worldwide. It's their invaluable "boots on the ground" experience – from the challenging terrains of the Andes to the remote islands of Micronesia, and the most extreme climates across every hemisphere – that informs every design choice.
Notably, our site's construction incorporates best practices gleaned directly from this extensive global field experience and our industry-leading Research and Development. For instance, the concrete piers for our vault were poured without steel reinforcement – a crucial detail recommended for optimal seismic results. Also a multi-layer insulation scheme is used with 30 cm insulation on the vault walls and ceiling, and individual covers over each of the sensors to eliminate temperature fluctuations that could disturb the seismic signal. This exemplifies our commitment to engineering for the highest data quality, including the unseen structural components of a station.
We also strategically planned for remote operations, mirroring the customer deployments our field teams handle daily, by operating on batteries, with plans to install solar power for long-term sustainability and operational independence. This site is a testament to the real-world wisdom our global field operations team brings to every project, ensuring our instruments and solutions are designed with the ultimate deployment success in mind.
What Happens at This Site? Fueling Future Innovation
This quiet testing site is primarily the domain of our dedicated Research & Development and Solutions teams. It serves as a consolidated laboratory where we conduct rigorous short-term and long-term tests on our newest instruments, sensor variants, station designs and use cases. The ultra-quiet environment is a critical catalyst for innovation, supporting our product roadmap. It allows our team to precisely measure and validate the inherent noise characteristics of new technologies, ensuring that our next generation of products will continue to set industry standards for sensitivity and data fidelity. This meticulous approach directly translates into more robust, higher-performing, and reliable instruments for our customers that consistently meet our design specifications every time to capture the high-quality seismic data our customers value.
For nearly 40 years, honed through countless global deployments in the harshest and most challenging environments, we have always ensured we walk a mile in our customers' shoes. This deep understanding of what it takes to successfully deploy our diverse instruments is a core part of who we are. Our new quiet testing haven is a living workshop and showcase for our solutions and training our customers. This directly enhances our high-performing, easy-to-deploy instrumentation and empowers our comprehensive site selection, station design, and deployment services. Nanometrics proudly offers both highly reliable instrumentation and the full spectrum of expertise to optimize your stations for peak performance and longevity, underscoring our dedication to your success and to advancing Earth science globally.
For more information about Nanometrics' commitment to quality and innovation, please explore our website or contact our team.
