The Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (the IRIS Consortium, www.iris.edu) operates multi-user facilities for the development, deployment, and operational support of modern digital seismic instrumentation and data management to serve national and international research and education in the Earth sciences. IRIS programs are overseen and governed by a Consortium of 115 Member Institutions, comprising virtually every US university with research programs in seismology. Consortium membership also includes 107 Foreign Affiliates and 20 Educational Affiliates. IRIS collaborates with national and international mission agencies, including the USGS, NOAA, DOE, DOD and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization, to leverage NSF investments to serve significant societal needs in the monitoring of earthquakes, tsunamis and nuclear test ban treaties. The preeminence of US Earth science in investigations of the Earth?s interior and earthquake sources rests in large part on the data and instrumentation facilities supported by NSF and managed by IRIS. The programs and activities to be carried out by IRIS under this award take their intellectual direction from a community-based long-range science plan described in the 2009 report: ?Seismological Grand Challenges in Understanding Earth?s Dynamic Systems? (www.iris.edu/hq/files/publications/iris_proposals/doc/seis_plan_final.pdf). Seismology provides a rich source of information on the structure and composition of Earth's crust, mantle, and core that, when coupled with other types of data in the growing number of interdisciplinary studies to which IRIS is committed, continues to enhance our understanding the origin of the planet, its evolution through geologic time, as well as the internal forces driving plate dynamics, earthquakes, volcanism, and the geomagnetic field. Recent developments in seismic sensor design, and the acquisition, transmission and storage of data have resulted in dramatic improvements in the resolving power of seismic imaging of Earth?s interior and characterization of the earthquake source. In addition to supporting basic research and discovery in the Earth sciences, the IRIS facilities also contribute essential data, resources and educational materials to programs with broad societal impact related to earthquake hazard mitigation, groundwater, energy and mineral exploration. The facilities and services managed by IRIS include: ? Instrumentation Services - operation and support for the 150 permanent broadband stations of the Global Seismographic Network (in collaboration with the USGS) and a pool of more than 2000 portable instruments of the Program for Array Seismic Studies of the Continental Lithosphere (PASSCAL) for denser deployments in NSF-funded research projects both in the US and abroad. ? Data Services ? free and open access through the IRIS Data Management Center to all data collected by IRIS programs or contributed by numerous national and international partners, along with support for software development, user tools, training services and data products to facilitate broad data utilization and encourage high quality standards in data collection and data management. ? Education and Public Outreach - creating materials and tools to encourage the public and educators at all levels to explore seismological data and advance awareness and understanding of seismology & Earth science, while inspiring careers in geophysics. Under the new Cooperative Agreement with NSF starting in 2011, IRIS will merge its long-standing support for Polar studies in both the Antarctic and Arctic with its other core services; move towards integrated management, starting in 2013, of its core programs with the related facilities of the USArray component of EarthScope; and continue to explore emerging opportunities to support research and hazard mitigation efforts in earthquake prone areas of the developing world.
This U.S. National Science Foundation award to the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS) supported the deployment, operation, and maintenance of global permanent and portable seismic stations; the quality control, archiving, and dissemination of seismic data; and domestic and international outreach activities. With funding through previous awards from the Division of Earth Sciences Instrumentation and Facilities Program, the IRIS Consortium has established, maintained, and developed a wide range of facilities to support research and education in seismology, in particular, and the Earth sciences, in general. The IRIS Data Management Center archives and freely distributes data from the Global Seismographic Network (153 permanent state-of the-art stations) and the Program for Array Seismic Studies of the Continental Lithosphere (hundreds of portable instruments available for scientists to use in short-term experiments). These data are a primary resource for national and international research and have helped the US maintain its position as a global leader in seismological research. Through collaborations with national and international mission agencies and organizations, IRIS data contribute to the monitoring of global earthquakes, tsunamis, and nuclear explosions. IRIS Education and Public Outreach programs encourage careers in the Earth sciences, inform the public of current earthquake activity, and provide visibility to NSF’s investments in support of geoscience research. The participation of 122 academic and research institutions from all over the United States in the Consortium’s governance structure, and the active engagement of research scientists in guiding the management of IRIS programs, continue to ensure that the facilities meet the evolving needs of the academic research community. Intellectual Merit Data collected and distributed through IRIS facilities form the observational basis for most of the fundamental studies in seismology carried out by researchers at US universities and in many organizations worldwide. The stability and high quality of the permanent observatories capture both the short-term details of faulting during the seconds to minutes of rupture in major earthquakes as well as decadal-scale changes in global earthquake activity. Data from permanent, mobile, and portable arrays are used to resolve features in Earth structure over scales that range from the whole Earth, to lithosphere, to regional basins, to fault zones. Seismological observations provide fundamental information on Earth structure and processes that, in combination with other geoscience disciplines, contribute to enhanced understanding of how the active Earth evolves and deforms. These seismological observations contribute to multidisciplinary studies that focus on the structure and dynamics of North America and contribute to unraveling the history of deformation of the continent. Broader Impacts The IRIS Education and Public Outreach (EPO) program directly links the public and schools with the outcomes of academic research through a variety of activities. IRIS EPO provides classroom and Web resources that demonstrate how seismological observations are made and interpreted, museum displays that describe IRIS programs in simple language and through animations, public lectures that talk about Earth science research and how it affects everyday life, and undergraduate internships that offer hands-on field experiences and guidance by scientific mentors. IRIS EPO programs aim to encourage students to engage in scientific inquiry and appreciate the importance of the Earth sciences in their lives. In addition to contributing to fundamental research, the seismological resources provided by IRIS directly support activities related to societal issues, including reporting of global earthquake activity and monitoring nuclear test ban treaties. Scientific and technical outreach by IRIS and its members as part of their international activities also provides assistance and guidance in the development and implementation of earthquake monitoring networks and hazard assessment, especially in developing countries.
