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SUMMARY AND MAJOR RECOMMENDATIONS A great earthquake in central China in A.D. l556 took approximately 830,000 human livesâa staggering toll from a single spasm of the earth lasting only a few minutes. Until l976, this was by far the greatest number of earth- quake casualties in any year in all recorded history. It appears that l976 will rival l556 in human deaths from earthquakes around the world, with a total of approxi- mately 700,000. It has been reported, unofficially but reliably,* that approximately 655,000 lives were lost in the T'ang-shan, China, earthquake of July 27, l976, and there were 40,000 more earthquake deaths in l976 in Guatemala, New Guinea, Turkey, Italy, and the Philippines. Hundreds of thousands of others were injured or left home- less, and the destruction of property, industry, and public facilities was enormous. Clearly, even in today's technologically advanced world, we are not free from the prospect of disaster when great natural forces are re- leased. Our rapidly expanding world population and its increasingly complex social and economic structures have many needs and problems. We are increasingly occupied with the search for new fuel and mineral resources in the earth. We are more and more plagued with the problem of safe disposal of immense volumes of the waste materials of our civilization--some of them potentially very dangerous to human, animal, and plant life over vast areas of the land and oceans. The Worldwide Standardized Seismograph Network (WWSSN) has contributed basic data for at least three major devel- opments in earth scienceâthe detection and identification *The Economist, January 8, l977, p. l3, and other sources. l
of underground nuclear explosions, the concept of plate tectonics, and the growing capability to predict earth- quakes. And now, further developments in the science and its technology promise newer research horizons. The WWSSN has functioned admirably since its inception about l5 years ago, even though financial support has been marginal for the last decade. The Network's current status and its future are uncertain. Attention to this problem and appropriate action are needed now. In view of the vital role that the WWSSN has played in the past and of its potential for making vital and unique contributions to geophysics in the future, the Panel sub- mits the following recommendation as a minimal require- ment for continuing the advancement of the science of seismology and its capacity to help resolve many human problems (see p. 22): Recommendation l Stable funding in the amount of at least $860,000 should be established to assure (a) continuing operation of the WWSSN as a basic research facility for U.S. investigators; (b) continuing mainte- nance and appropriate upgrading of the WWSSN; and (c) suitable data organization, storage, retrieval, and distribution facilities. New advances in instrumental and recording capabilities have provided a vastly increased dynamic range for earthquake-wave measurements (several orders of magnitude) and a greatly improved capability to analyze digital data by means of high-speed computers. These developments can revolutionize our understanding of the physical properties and structure of the earth and lead to new insights into the genesis and emplacement of mineral resources and the nature and prediction of earthquake-related hazards. New or improved seismic stations have been installed at many locations around the world as components of special networks; many of the new stations are at the locations of WWSSN stations. The new stations have the improved capability of a digital-data-recording system and improved instrumental characteristics, and the net- works provide wider global coverage. These new stations are the Seismic Research Observa- tories (SRO's); the Abbreviated Seismic Research Observa- tories (ASRO's); the High-Gain Long-Period (HGLP) stations, which were installed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA); and the stations installed under the International Deployment of Accelerometers (IDA)
project, which has been supported by the National Science Foundation and private funds. The establishment of these new stations has been envisaged as upgrading of the WWSSN, and, to date, they have been used only for special re- search studies. The time is at hand to take full advantage of the new, improved seismic stations by combining them, under a specific program and under a single agency for management purposes, into an improved WWSSN. Such a network can pro- vide U.S. investigators in particular and investigators throughout the world in general with a seismological research capability far beyond any that exists today. An interagency committee composed of representatives from DAKPA, NSF, NOAA, USGS, and OMB should be established to provide a mechanism for appropriate transfer of manage- ment responsibilities. The potential of such an improved system to make possible otherwise impossible studies of global and regional earth structure and of source mechanisms is im- measurable. The Panel believes that with this new system a new era in seismological services would emerge, in- volving, among other capabilities, routine announcements of new and more definitive earthquake parameters (loca- tion, depth, size, stress release, for example). In view of this new potential, the following recommendation by the Panel is__c_learly within the national interest (see pp. 34- 35 and 56): Recommendation 2 (a) Stable funding should be established within the U.S. Geological Survey to con- tinue operation, maintenance, and improvement of the HGLP, SRO, ASRO, and IDA seismograph stations. Further, about 50 WWSSN stations should be upgraded to include digital recording capability. (b) The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Admin- istration should provide facilities for the organization, storage, retrieval, and distribution of digital data from the above observatories. By combining the new stations into an improved global network, as recommended above, investigators will have a new level of technical capability far above that available now, but many researchers will need help in learning how to use the new digital data. To achieve this new level of earthquake-research capability, the Panel offers the following recommendation (see comprehensive discussions on pp. 52-53):
Recommendation 3 Regional research centers should be established at existing facilities to provide a library of digital seismic data, access to modern computer facili- ties, required software for processing data, and a support staff. The Panel has looked at new areas of research, and the one that stands out as a frontier is the ocean bottom. The two thirds of the earth that is covered by ocean waters is essentially virgin territory for earthquake seismologists, and we would expect important new dis- coveries from studies of earthquakes recorded by instru- ments on the bottoms of the oceans. The technology of self-contained, free-drop, ocean-bottom seismograph cap- sules has advanced so that operating times as long as a year are feasible. In addition, more permanent ocean- bottom stations are certainly possible utilizing tethered buoys, acoustic data links, and oceanic telephone and telegraph cables. Data from ocean-bottom stations would greatly extend our knowledge of earth gravity, load and tilt tides, and other infraseismic phenomena as a mini- mum. The results of these studies would be important to a large segment of the earth-science community, including geodesists and oceanographers. The Panel submits the following recommendation to enable future investigation of this frontier of first-order importance (see p. 38): Recommendation 4 A comprehensive effort should be made to determine the feasibility of an extensive, long-term program in ocean-bottom seismology. The text contains several additional recommendations concerning the following: Portable broadband seismographs (p. 35) Space-related studies (pp. 35-36) Instrument calibration (p. 39) International cooperation (pp. 46-48) User services (pp. 53-55) Funding of facilities (pp. 56-58)
