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The efficacy of STATS’ geohazard monitoring capabilities were vividly illustrated on 6th April 2009 as monitoring equipment installed on a pipeline in South Wales recorded the devastating 6.3-magnitude earthquake that struck near the town of L’Aquila, central Italy.
By the time the aftershock reached the UK, it was too weak to cause any damage, but it did highlight the remarkable sensitivity of STATS monitoring equipment installed at above ground installations in Three Cocks, Treaddow and Vowchurch, some 1,600km away from the incident.
“It is rare for earthquakes of this magnitude to affect this particular region, although central and northern Italy in general are quite seismically active,” said STATS geophysics director George Tuckwell, who was in the area last summer working on an UN Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) training course with the Italian National Institute for Geology and Volcanology on how to use electrical methods to determine deep geological units and tectonic structures.
The pipeline project included the first ever use of permanent seismometers on the pipe structure itself at above ground installations. These provide information on the dynamic response of the exposed pipework to ground motion, as well as real-time information on pipe integrity. Data is recorded locally at each monitoring station and streamed to a secure data server in St Albans where it is analysed for natural earthquakes by the geophysics team.
“Geohazards broadly fall into four categories, which range from single discrete geological events such as earthquakes, through various naturally occurring types of ground conditions such as voided ground, weak soils or unstable slopes, to legacies from human activities including buried obstructions and contamination,” explained George.
Accelerometer trace for the earthquake wave arriving at one of the monitoring stations
For more information contact George
Tuckwell.
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