High School Junior’s Consumer Seismometer Delivers Low-Cost Earthquake Early Warning

23 April 2021–A Southern California high school junior has built a low-cost seismometer device that delivers earthquake early warnings for homes and businesses. Costing less than $100 for her to make today, the seismometer could someday be a regular household safety device akin to a smart smoke detector, says its … Continue Reading »

Researchers Share Strategies for Making Geosciences More Inclusive

Black in Geoscience logo

21 April 2021–Concrete efforts to bring racial equity to the geosciences are receiving significant attention in the wake of new grassroots efforts and increased awareness of social justice issues in 2020, speakers said at the Seismological Society of America (SSA)’s 2021 Annual Meeting. Last year’s Black in Geoscience Week, for … Continue Reading »

At Work: Paula Koelemeijer

Paula-Koelemeijer

15 April 2021–The list of Paula Koelemeijer’s study subjects would be enough to pique anyone’s interest: continent-sized blobs in the Earth’s lower mantle, mountains on its core, and … elephants. More about the elephants later. Koelemeijer, a Royal Society University Research Fellow at Royal Holloway University of London, is a … Continue Reading »

At Work: Marlon Ramos

Marlon Ramos

14 February 2020–As he pursued his master’s degree at Boise State University, Marlon Ramos was doing what he calls “traditional, active-source seismology,” interpreting seismic pictures of tsunami-producing faults near the Kodiak Island segment of the Alaska-Aleutian megathrust zone. “I had an interest in subduction zones and the very large earthquakes … Continue Reading »

At Work: Jessica Velasquez

Jessica Velasquez

20 November 2019–The terms may seem interchangeable to a layperson, but “hazard” and “risk” mean very different things in earthquake science. A seismic hazard is a natural phenomenon such as the level of ground shaking caused by an earthquake. Seismic risk, on the other hand, refers to the probability that … Continue Reading »