Small investment at a local scale in Argentina leading to national and international cooperation projects

Activity: Talk or presentationTalk or presentation at a conference

Description

Sometimes, wild, half-baked ideas could lead to very nice and wide international research cooperations. This is the case with the MalARRgue array that was installed in Argentina. The idea got half-baked when travelling through Malargüe region, Mendoza, Argentina, on vacation. Close to the town of Malargüe, the Pierre Auger Observatory is installed with detectors every 1.5 km2. Seeing this, the idea appeared in my mind to install there also seismic station for continuous recording of the ambient noise. One thing led to another, and in January 2012 the MalARRgue array was installed that recorded continuously for one year. The array totaled 38 stations with short-period sensors borrowed from Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology–Program for Array Seismic Studies of the Continental Lithosphere (IRIS-PASSCAL). The funding represented about 40000 USD from the Argentine government and about 30000 EURO from the section of Applied Geophysics and Petrophysics, Delft University of Technology, and invested voluntary time from me, colleagues from International Center for Earth Sciences (ICES) and Comision Nacional de Energia Atomica (CNEA) from Argentina, in particular Dr. Martin Gomez, and my colleague Dr. Elmer Ruigrok. The result was the recording of unique data that allowed specific applications of seismic interferometry and the seismic description of the volcanic region of Malargüe. This resulted in the establishment of excellent cooperation with the National University of La Plata, Argentina, which continues till now for different projects, and cooperation with Boise State University; through these two, also cooperation was established with and with Argentine Observatory for Volcanic Vigilance (Observatorio Argentino de Vigilancia Volcánica – OAVV, part of Servicio Geologico Minero Argentino – SEGEMAR), Argentina, and Observatorio Volcanológico de Los Andes del Sur (OVDAS), Chile; the data also contributed to me being awarded a personal grant (800000 EURO) from the Dutch research council NWO, which further led to cooperation with Los Alamos National Laboratory, USA.
Period15 Dec 2022
Event titleAGU Fall Meeting 2022
Event typeConference
LocationChicago, United StatesShow on map