RAPID: Seismic Investigation of Geysers at El Tatio

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THhis RAPID requestaims to collect a new and exciting data set that will support geyser eruptionresearch currently funded by the National Science Foundation. The goal of this proposalis to create a short-term seismic array that will monitor and characterize the seismicbehavior of the shall subsurface at El Tatio Geyser Fields. This is the third largestgeyser field in the world. Due to the more relaxed stance on marginally invasivescientific investigations, El Tatio is an ideal location to deploy such a network. The datawill be unique in sensor density and duration. Consequently, results will likely surpassthose for any other geyser field. The goal is to characterize subsurface processes resulting in seismic vibrations andcorrelate these sources with surface eruption characteristics measured by MichaelManga?s group (at UC Berkeley). The concurrent measurements of temperature,discharge rate, eruption height, eruption duration and recurrence time, will make this dataset completely unique. As the world?s third largest geyser field, El Tatio is a key geotourism location. Betterunderstanding of the subsurface processes for such locations will eventually helpeducation the broader public. Geyser eruptions are also key for understanding volcaniceruption processes as well as constraining important properties for geothermal energygeneration. Because this is a unique data set, and the data will be archived at the IRISDMC for posterity, we anticipate that the data will contribute to further investigationsinto geothermal and geyser processes.