At Work: Allison Bent

Allison Bent

11 May 2018–How big is an earthquake? Seismologists have been measuring this feature—the magnitude of an earthquake—for more than a century, but the answers are not always as straightforward as one would think, says Allison Bent, a research seismologist with Natural Resources Canada. Numbers associated with the Richter scale and … Continue Reading »

Can Animals Predict Earthquakes?

Frog

17 April 2018–For centuries people have claimed that strange behavior by their cats, dogs and even cows can predict an imminent earthquake, but the first rigorous analysis of the phenomenon concludes that there is no strong evidence behind the claim. The paper published in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society … Continue Reading »

At Work: Natalia Ruppert

11 April 2018–In 1994, Natalia Ruppert arrived at the University of Alaska Fairbanks to start graduate school, uncertain whether she would stay for more than one semester. Now, Ruppert has been studying earthquakes in her adopted state and country for almost 25 years, with no plans to leave Fairbanks in … Continue Reading »