Overview

The 2023 DAS field experience will be held May 30-June 1st (all day) at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado. This event will include hands-on experience with distributed acoustic sensing systems and installation techniques. We encourage all to apply; we plan to support participants with a range of education/career stages and previous DAS experience.

Venue

The field experience will be held at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado, at the Distributed Fiber Optic Sensing Laboratory and the Ken Larner GeoMaker Space in the Green Center. More information about these facilities is available here.

More information is also available for airport transport and on-campus parking.

Code of Conduct

All participants will be required to adhere to the EarthScope Code of Conduct.

Organizing Team

• Eileen Martin, Colorado School of Mines, Instructor
• Ge Jin, Colorado School of Mines, Instructor
• Jeff Shragge, Colorado School of Mines, Instructor
• Student Instructors, Colorado School of Mines
• Kasey Aderhold, EarthScope Consortium Inc., Project Manager
• Krystin Poitra, EarthScope Consortium Inc., Meeting Planner

Agenda

A program for 3 days (May 30th-June 1st ~8am-5pm) has been developed below.

May 29, 2023

06:30 pm – Dinner at Sherpa House (RSVP required), 1518 Washington Avenue 

May 30, 2023

08:00 am – Arrive on campus, Green Center classroom 200F

08:30 am – Introductions (G. Jin, E. Martin, K. Aderhold)

09:00 am – Basics of DAS applications and installations (E. Martin)

09:50 am – Break

10:00 am – Principles of OTDR, DAS measurement, and fiber cables (G. Jin)

10:50 am – Break

11:00 am – Data management and exercise (E. Martin)

11:45 am – Lunch – on your own

12:45 pm – “Office Hours”/Q&A, Green Center Geomaker Space

01:15 pm – Fiber cable structure and splicing overview (G. Jin)

01:35 pm – Rotate two groups through:

• Geomaker space: splicing exercise (with G. Jin, D. Chambers)
• Green Center 200F and going outside and down to DFOS Lab: rotate through discussion of field and lab safety, tour of DFOS Lab and Geophysical Discovery Lab (with E. Martin, M.  Siegfried) – optionally can do self-guided tour of Geology Museum

02:35 – Break and swap groups

02:45 – Rotate two groups through:

• Geomaker space: splicing exercise (with G. Jin, D. Chambers)
• Green Center 200F and going outside and down to DFOS Lab: rotate through discussion of field and lab safety, tour of DFOS Lab and Geophysical Discovery Lab (with E. Martin, M.  Siegfried) – optionally can do self-guided tour of Geology Museum

03:45 – Break and gather in Green Center 200F

03:55 – Day 1 Wrap Up Discussion, and Prepping for Day 2 Field Experience (E. Martin)

04:30 pm – Conclude Day 1

May 31, 2023

08:00 am – Arrive on campus, Green Center classroom 200F

08:30 am – Introduce plan and gear list for day (E.Martin)

09:00 am – Move and deploy fiber gear (1 loose surface, 1 pinned) and comparison geophone array over buried fiber on Kafadar Commons (led by G. Jin, assisted by T. Snyder)

10:15 am – Data recording with various sources (e.g. hammer) – note: rotate through break times (led by G. Jin)

11:00 am – Data management discussion, classroom Green Center 200F (E. Martin)

11:30 am – Office hours/Q&A, classroom Green Center 200F

12:00 pm – Lunch – on your own

• (Hani Alzahrani PhD Thesis Defense, Marquez 122, “RNN Seismic Velocity Model Building: Improving Generalization Using a Frequency-Stepping Approach and Hybrid Training Data”)

01:00 pm – Getting started with DASCore on Google Colab with data on Google Drive (E. Martin)

01:30 pm – Visualizing tap tests (G. Jin)

02:00 pm – Break

02:15 pm – Data exploration (E. Martin)

02:45 pm – DAS experiment design brainstorming activity (15 min setup – 30 min small groups – 15 min whole group)

03:45 pm – Break

03:55 pm – Overview of DAS resources (K. Aderhold)

04:10 pm – Day 2 Wrap Up Discussion, and Prepping for Day 3 (optional) DASDAE

04:30 pm – Conclude Day 2

June 1, 2023

08:00 am – Arrive on campus, Green Center classroom 200F

08:30 am – Installation of DASDAE software for those who encountered issues

09:00 am – Examples of data structures, introduction of features, and who’s who in DASDAE (E. Martin, G. Jin, D. Chambers)

10:30 am – Break

10:45 am – Exercise Set: output data to pre-set grid, STA/LTA of events, comparison of spectra – using Terra15 data set (E. Martin)

11:45 am – Paired pairs debrief discussion

12:00 pm – Lunch – on your own

01:00 pm – “Office Hours”/Q&A, Green Center Geomaker Space

01:30 pm – Exercise Set: patchwise data, coherence matrix, gain correction, filter data (D. Chambers)

02:30 pm – Paired pairs debrief discussion

02:45 pm – Demonstration of parallelization (D. Chambers)

03:00 pm – Break

03:15 pm – Distributed Acoustic Sensing Data Analysis Ecosystem (DASDAE) focus group discussion (A. Girard)

04:15 pm – Future activities discussion (G. Jin)

05:00 pm – Conclude Day 3

Reimbursement Policy

If selected for travel support, reimbursement of travel expenses (airfare/ground transportation/per diem) to the maximum as awarded to you will require being compliant with NSF policies, EarthScope travel policies, and supplying proper documentation. A specific DAS RCN Field Experience reimbursement form will be sent to you to fill out and return with updated instructions.

Itemized receipts are required for out-of-pocket expenses as well as proper documentation. Specific instructions sent to selected participants will include:

• Airfare receipts should show the itinerary, itemization of cost, and class of airfare (NOTE: if using a foreign-flag air carrier, proper justification will be needed otherwise the expense may not be covered.)
• Mileage, if applicable, should be supported by a Google map showing the starting and ending location.
  • If driving more than 500 miles one direction:
    • A printout of a comparison, economy class airfare for the applicable dates of travel between the the nearest commercial airport serving the origin and destination cities is required.
    • Reimbursement will not exceed the lesser of the cost of per-mile reimbursement plus tolls or the comparison airfare plus transfer costs to and from the airport.
  • Gas purchases are not allowed as this is covered by mileage.
  • Any other transportation expenses, such as taxi cab/Uber/Lyft (to/from airport/hotel), parking, and tolls are allowable.  Receipts should include dates, amounts, and other relevant information.
• Rental cars are not reimbursable under this provided support.
• No other expenses are covered outside of transportation, lodging, and per diem.

Covered hotel nights will be booked and directly billed to EarthScope; a credit card is required at check-in for any additional charges to the room bill. Unless otherwise approved, only nights of May 29th-June 1st will be covered. Participants are responsible for any other charges incurred to their room at check out.

Per diem will be calculated for you based on your travel dates, not to exceed May 29th to June 2nd and not including provided meals.

We will be following the local health orders for Colorado School of Mines. As of April 6, 2023, the recommendations are:

• Stay home (and away from campus) when sick
• Get tested for COVID-19 (rapid at-home or PCR test)
• Follow isolation and quarantine guidelines if you test positive or are a close contact

Masks and COVID-19 tests will be available at this event upon request.

As part of the application process, participants will be asked to commit to not attending if they test positive or develop symptoms during or within 5 days of the start of the event, or as otherwise recommended by local health orders. The State of Colorado also maintains a COVID dashboard displaying public health data.