On Dec 29th, Meysam and Colin scouted and confirmed 4 site locations in the eastern side of Mallow city, along the MT Line 2 on both sides of the river and the Killarney-Mallow fault.
Meysam and Dave then returned from 4th – 6th January 4-6th to deploy 4 broadband stations running on solar and battery at those 4 sites. The weather was mixed with some pretty wet days as you can see from the photos.
Our sensors need to be secured from water. To do this the team had an ingenious setup to protect the electronics. First they dug a 50-70cm deep hole and poured concrete in the bottom. They then pushed a plastic drum into the concrete and added cement to this to make a level floor for the sensor.
Once the cement is dry they leveled the sensor orienting them North so that we can work out the direction of our seismic waves. After this all the cables were connected and sealed inside the bin. The cables from the sensor go to a connection box and connect to the power, in this case a solar panel and battery.
The DIG team will be back in early February to check everything is working appropriately and if the solar panel can charge the batteries in the Irish winter!
The aim is to leave the seismometers recording for the next year and collect the data every few months to process and image the subsurface beneath each site. Once the work is complete, all materials including concrete will be removed and the land left as we found it.
