Facilitating New Discoveries in Seismology and Exploring the Earth: The Next Decade

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The Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (the IRIS Consortium,www.iris.edu) operates multi-user facilities for the development, deployment, and operationalsupport of modern digital seismic instrumentation and data management to serve national andinternational research and education in the Earth sciences. IRIS programs are overseen andgoverned by a Consortium of 115 Member Institutions, comprising virtually every US universitywith research programs in seismology. Consortium membership also includes 107 ForeignAffiliates and 20 Educational Affiliates. IRIS collaborates with national and internationalmission agencies, including the USGS, NOAA, DOE, DOD and the Comprehensive Test BanTreaty Organization, to leverage NSF investments to serve significant societal needs in themonitoring of earthquakes, tsunamis and nuclear test ban treaties.The preeminence of US Earth science in investigations of the Earth?s interior andearthquake sources rests in large part on the data and instrumentation facilities supported by NSFand managed by IRIS. The programs and activities to be carried out by IRIS under this awardtake their intellectual direction from a community-based long-range science plan described in the2009 report: ?Seismological Grand Challenges in Understanding Earth?s Dynamic Systems?(www.iris.edu/hq/files/publications/iris_proposals/doc/seis_plan_final.pdf). Seismology providesa rich source of information on the structure and composition of Earth's crust, mantle, and corethat, when coupled with other types of data in the growing number of interdisciplinary studies towhich IRIS is committed, continues to enhance our understanding the origin of the planet, itsevolution 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 inthe resolving power of seismic imaging of Earth?s interior and characterization of the earthquakesource. In addition to supporting basic research and discovery in the Earth sciences, the IRISfacilities also contribute essential data, resources and educational materials to programs withbroad societal impact related to earthquake hazard mitigation, groundwater, energy and mineralexploration.The facilities and services managed by IRIS include:? Instrumentation Services - operation and support for the 150 permanent broadbandstations of the Global Seismographic Network (in collaboration with the USGS) and a pool ofmore than 2000 portable instruments of the Program for Array Seismic Studies of the ContinentalLithosphere (PASSCAL) for denser deployments in NSF-funded research projects both in the USand abroad.? Data Services ? free and open access through the IRIS Data Management Center to alldata 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 tofacilitate broad data utilization and encourage high quality standards in data collection and datamanagement.? Education and Public Outreach - creating materials and tools to encourage the publicand educators at all levels to explore seismological data and advance awareness andunderstanding of seismology & Earth science, while inspiring careers in geophysics.Under the new Cooperative Agreement with NSF starting in 2011, IRIS will merge itslong-standing support for Polar studies in both the Antarctic and Arctic with its other coreservices; move towards integrated management, starting in 2013, of its core programs with therelated facilities of the USArray component of EarthScope; and continue to explore emergingopportunities to support research and hazard mitigation efforts in earthquake prone areas of thedeveloping world.