Category: At Work

15 October 2020–The shape of the Earth may seem stable, but Virginia Tech geophysicist D. Sarah Stamps knows differently. She and her colleagues track its shifting shape millimeter by millimeter, quantifying the horizontal and vertical motions of the tectonic plates to get at the physics behind the plate motions. The … Continue Reading »

14 September 2020–In 2004, Brian Terbush climbed Mt. St. Helens in Washington State. The trip fueled his fascination with volcanoes, and he “jumped on the chance” to go to graduate school to study them further. “I’ve been lucky to get to see lots of volcanoes erupting and get a little … Continue Reading »

17 August 2020–For decades, seismologists have contended with the background “hiss” of the Earth—seismic waves generated by the normal interaction of land, ocean and atmosphere. Their goal has been to find ways to subtract this “noise,” to concentrate on the seismicity generated by earthquakes. But one scientist’s noise is another’s … Continue Reading »

13 July 2020–Deep long period (DLP) earthquakes occur close to the base of the crust and contain seismic waveforms with  frequencies less than 5 Hz—a phenomenon very different from the high frequency, relatively shallow tectonic activity that most people think of as an earthquake. DLP earthquakes are most often associated … Continue Reading »

16 June 2020–In 1988, as a graduate student, SSA President Bill Walter and his colleagues arrived in Kazakhstan to record a Soviet nuclear test as part of the U.S.-USSR Joint Verification Experiment (JVE). The partnership was an unusual one in the context of the Cold War: U.S. and Soviet scientists … Continue Reading »

15 May 2020–When Janis Hernandez was studying for her associate degree, she took an introduction to geology class to meet a science requirement. “After that, I kept thinking, ‘what’s wrong with me, why am I thinking so much about rocks?’” she says. “It was just so interesting. And once you … Continue Reading »