Advancing earthquake science worldwide
21 September 2021–Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have calculated moment tensors for 130 underground nuclear and 10 chemical test explosions that took place at the Nevada National Security test site. Often represented graphically to resemble a striped “beach ball,” moment tensors “are essentially a mathematical concept that’s used to … Continue Reading »
10 August 2021–Earthquakes generated by controlled fluid injection at Colorado’s Rangely oil field were caused by destabilizing fault pore pressure changes, according to a new mechanistic model applied to data from the decades’ old project The Rangely experiment, conducted from 1969 to 1973, is one of the oldest studies of … Continue Reading »
16 June 2021–The Seismological Society of America (SSA) announced today the appointment of P. Martin Mai as editor-in-chief of the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (BSSA). Mai is a professor of geophysics in the Earth Science and Engineering program of the Physical Sciences and Engineering Division at KAUST. … Continue Reading »
15 June 2021–For the first time, researchers have used precariously-balanced rocks to set the formal design earthquake motions for a major existing engineered structure—the Clyde Dam, the largest concrete dam in New Zealand. Mark Stirling of the University of Otago and colleagues identified and assessed the ages of these gravity-defying … Continue Reading »
11 May 2021–Researchers have developed a global earthquake monitoring system that uses the Global Navigational Satellite System (GNSS) to measure crustal deformation. The monitoring system within seconds can rapidly assess earthquake magnitude and fault slip distribution for earthquakes of magnitude 7.0 and larger, making it a potentially valuable tool in … Continue Reading »
13 April 2021–In the Cascadia subduction zone, medium and large-sized “intraslab” earthquakes, which take place at greater than crustal depths within the subducting plate, will likely produce only a few detectable aftershocks, according to a new study. The findings could have implications for forecasting aftershock seismic hazard in the Pacific … Continue Reading »