Advancing earthquake science worldwide
9 June 2022–In April, the Seismological Society of America (SSA) and the American Geophysical Union (AGU) agreed on minor updates to their position statement, “The Capability to Monitor the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) Should be Expanded, Completed, and Sustained.” The CTBT is an international agreement to ban all nuclear … Continue Reading »
16 May 2022–Peggy Hellweg was the first Explainer hired at the Exploratorium, a science, technology and arts museum in San Francisco, when it opened in 1969. The job as a young docent, engaging visitors and leading demonstrations, was a perfect fit for Hellweg. She had grown up in a family … Continue Reading »
3 May 2022–Including topography—the hills, cliffs and valleys of a landscape—in ground motion models shows where shaking might be most amplified during an earthquake, researchers demonstrate with detailed new models of the Puget Sound region. In their models, Ian Stone of the U.S. Geological Survey and colleagues simulated several magnitude … Continue Reading »
22 April 2022–The presence of an atmospheric acoustic duct, a channel of sound at the boundary between the troposphere and stratosphere, has been verified for the first time by Sandia National Laboratory scientists. Solar hot air balloons carrying microbarometers floating in the lower stratosphere were able to observe infrasound signals … Continue Reading »
22 April 2022–Diamonds that formed deep in the Earth could help seismologists answer a decades-old question: do fluids play a role in generating earthquakes at depths where high pressure should keep brittle failure from happening? Fluid-assisted faulting in subducted slabs 300 to 700 kilometers deep, in the transition zone between … Continue Reading »
22 April 2022–Using a telecommunications fiber-optic-based sensing system, researchers were able to track the spread of sea ice in near-real-time over a 40-kilometer stretch of the Beaufort Sea north of Alaska. The deployment demonstrates a new way to monitor ice formation in a region where ice coverage has economic, cultural … Continue Reading »