The project was initiated after the devastation of the 2010 Haiti Earthquake, which was a 7.0 Mw earthquake.[4] Starting from 2011, UNAVCO built and operated COCONet for the National Science Foundation (NSF). It was a network of continuous GPS meteorology or cGPS/Met sites. Along with the NSF-funded TLALOCNet GPS network in Mexico, the two networks of cGPS-Met instrumentation were available to support research in Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean.[5]
Provide details on the tectonics of the entire Caribbean region.
Enhance atmospheric observations that can be used for testing and validation of climate and weather models.
Improve the analysis of local geodetic (the science of planetary measurement) measurements by providing access to an integrated backbone electronic network of reference stations.
A notable station is the station on the isolated Isla del Coco (Cocos Island), Costa Rica, in that it is the only GPS station continuously tracking the Cocos Plate, as it passes underneath the Caribbean Plate, at a rate of 78 millimeters (mm) per year.[4][6] Because the island is the only land mass of the Cocos Plate that is above sea level, this was the only place where Cocos Plate motion observations could be measured in this GPS network. A continuous GPS station was built and instrumented on the island in May 2011. Data from the station show a steady motion of the island at a speed of 90.9±1.5mm/yr. or approximately 90 millimeters a year.
COCOnet had held for workshops. The meetings can help to understand the history of the project:
The original COCONet project proposal was covered in three workshops:
The first one was planned to be held in San Juan, Puerto Rico (February 3–4, 2011)
The second meeting was to be held in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, Republic of Trinidad & Tobago (June 28–29, 2011) with one of several goals being for Caribbean network operators to address the specifics of choosing existing and new stations.
The third COCONet workshop focused primarily on longer-term operations and maintenance for GPS stations installed in the Caribbean, and related issues.[8]
The last publications and workshops of COCOnet were the following:
Factors Contributing to the 2005–Present, Rapid Rise in Lake Levels, Dominican Republic and Haiti (Hispaniola). It was published in Natural Resources in August 2015[10]
The 2012 August 27 Mw7.3 El Salvador earthquake: expression of weak coupling on the Middle America subduction zone. It published in Geophysical Journal International in June 2015.[11]
Three-dimensional Dynamic Rupture Simulations Across Interacting Faults: The Mw7. 0, 2010, Haiti Earthquake. It was published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth in February 2015[12]
The last workshop was COCONet - Results, Sustainability, and Capacity Building, which had been held May 3–5, 2016 in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic.[5]
^Factors Contributing to the 2005-Present, Rapid Rise in Lake Levels, Dominican Republic and Haiti (Hispaniola)
August 2015
Wright, V., Hornbach, M., Mchugh, C. and Mann, P. (2015) Factors Contributing to the 2005-Present, Rapid Rise in Lake Levels, Dominican Republic and Haiti (Hispaniola). Natural Resources, 6, 465-481. https://doi.org/10.4236/nr.2015.68045.
^The 2012 August 27 Mw7.3 El Salvador earthquake: expression of weak coupling on the Middle America subduction zone.
June 2015
Geirsson, H., LaFemina, P., DeMets, C., Hernandez, D. A., Mattioli, G. S., Rogers, R., Rodriguez, M., Marroquin, G., & Tenorio, V. (2015). The 2012 August 27 Mw7.3 El Salvador earthquake: expression of weak coupling on the Middle America subduction zone. Geophysical Journal International, 202(3), 1677-1689. https://doi.org/10.1093/gji/ggv244.
^Three-dimensional Dynamic Rupture Simulations Across Interacting Faults: The Mw7. 0, 2010, Haiti Earthquake.
February 2015
Douilly, R., Aochi, H., Calais, E., & Freed, A. M. (2015). Three-dimensional Dynamic Rupture Simulations Across Interacting Faults: The Mw7. 0, 2010, Haiti Earthquake. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, https://doi.org/10.1002/2014JB011595.