The Community Seismic Experiment

This research cruise is part of a much larger project, the Eastern North American Community Seismic Experiment (ENAM CSE), funded by the National Science Foundation’s GeoPRISMs (Geodynamic Processes at Rifting and Subducting Margins) initiative. The goal of the ENAM CSE is to understand how the breakup of the supercontinent Pangaea led to the formation of the eastern edge of North America and the Atlantic Ocean, and the later evolution of this continental margin by landslides and other active processes.

The community project is collecting active and passive, onshore and offshore seismic data to image geological structures at a range of scales to learn about the evolution of continental margins and associated geohazards.  

One of the unique aspects of this project is that it brings together scientists from a wide range of backgrounds with varying interests. In addition, since this is a “community” experiment, all of the data will be publically available for anyone to use.

This project involves the following major components:

• Deploying broadband ocean bottom seismometers (OBS) across the continental margin for one year with the R/V Endeavor (April 2014) 
• Deploying broadband seismometers on the Outer Banks to connect between EarthScope stations and the offshore array (May 2014)
• Acquiring marine seismic reflection data across the margin with the R/V Marcus G. Langseth (Sept-Oct 2014)
• Deploying short-period OBS across the margin with the R/V Endeavor to record the Langseth's seismic source (Sept-Oct 2014)
• Deploying short-period seismometers onshore to record the Langseth's seismic source (Sept-Oct 2014)
• Acquiring onshore active-source seismic data (summer 2015)

You can read more ongoing updates on the project blog here: http://enamseismic.blogspot.com/