Advancing earthquake science worldwide
3 December 2021–Three-dimensional fault models are generally more accurate than two-dimensional line models at sending ground shaking alerts to the correct areas as part of an earthquake early warning system, according to a new study. The benefits of 3D fault models vary depending on the fault style (a strike slip … Continue Reading »
30 November 2021–About 1000 days after the Mars InSight mission deployed SEIS, the first seismometer on the red planet, researchers are analyzing new seismic data and reporting on instrument responses, using these data to plan for future planetary seismographs. The reports in a special issue of the Bulletin of the … Continue Reading »
19 November 2021–With data unearthed from seismic stations, observatories and libraries across the world, researchers have pinpointed the location of a massive earthquake that took place in India 125 years ago—one of the largest intraplate earthquakes known to history. The magnitude 8 Great 1897 Shillong Plateau earthquake, sometimes called the … Continue Reading »
3 November 2021–Seismic hazard analyses may use ergodic ground motion models—a sort of “average” based on global data about ground motion—or non-ergodic models, which incorporate more local and regional data on seismic source and nearby geologic structures. Having that site-specific analysis can make a big difference, as consulting seismologist Gilead … Continue Reading »
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 »
20 September 2021–Growing up in the mountains in China, Songqiao “Shawn” Wei never saw the ocean until he was 23, flying over the Pacific from Beijing to San Francisco for an American Geophysical Union meeting. “But when I was a kid I liked the sea, from books and movies, and … Continue Reading »