August 21, 2014
Infrasound reveals lava lake levels
The rises and falls of volcanic lava lakes are not easily tracked, especially when the lakes aren’t visible from crater rims. But recently, …
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Seismology
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57 articles · Page 2 of 3
August 21, 2014
Human-induced earthquakes shake less
Occurrences of earthquakes in the Central and Eastern United States have increased since 2009 — a phenomenon that many scientists attribute to …
August 19, 2014
In Turkey, the older the fault, the bigger the quake: Good news for Istanbul?
For decades, Istanbul has been bracing for a major earthquake from the dangerously active North Anatolian Fault, which passes just 20 kilometers …
July 28, 2014
Books: The once and future San Andreas Fault
One of the most famous pictures of the San Andreas Fault — taken by G.K. Gilbert, the pioneering geologist whose late-19th century insights into …
July 21, 2014
Are slow-slip earthquakes under Tokyo stressing faults?
To study plate movements under Tokyo, Shinzaburo Ozawa of the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan in Tsukuba used GPS sensors to track the …
June 30, 2014
Unlocking the Cascadia Subduction Zone's secrets: Peering into recent research and findings
Once overlooked because of its relative inactivity compared to other subduction zones around the world, the Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ) — and …
May 15, 2014
Longmenshan fault zone in the spotlight after two major quakes in five years
In May 2008, a magnitude-7.9 earthquake struck near Wenchuan, China, killing more than 80,000 people in the country’s biggest quake since 1950. …
April 23, 2014
Observing a plate boundary
More than 280 continuous GPS (cGPS) stations in Cascadia are part of the U.S. Plate Boundary Observatory (PBO), a component of EarthScope, which …
April 23, 2014
A truly global system
Like the GPS navigation system in your car or smartphone, a high-precision GPS receiver uses signals from satellites to determine the distance …
April 14, 2014
Precise to a fault: How GPS revolutionized seismic research
In the late 1980s, Ken Hudnut, a Columbia University graduate student studying plate tectonics in Southern California, began experimenting with a …
April 11, 2014
Faking quakes at full scale: Giant shake tables simulate earthquakes to make buildings safer
On a muggy day in mid-July 2009, a lone seven-story condominium complex northwest of Kobe, Japan, was violently shaken by seismic forces similar …
November 20, 2013
Giant quake sloshed fjords half a world away
On the morning of March 11, 2011, Leif Hus and his wife Gry Melas Hus were having breakfast in their kitchen overlooking Sognefjord in Leikanger, …
November 20, 2013
Old photos help scientists relocate 1906 San Francisco quake rupture point
Portola Valley, just south of San Francisco, is famous for its progressive approach to geology. The town was the subject of the first geologic …
October 29, 2013
World's largest deep earthquake recorded
The seismology world may have a new leader in superlatives: On May 24, 2013, the largest, deep earthquake ever recorded struck beneath the Sea of …
March 15, 2013
Big quakes topple traditional views of fault behavior
If rules are made to be broken, then perhaps conventional wisdom is made to be overturned. The spate of large earthquakes in recent years — the …
February 12, 2013
Well-healed faults produce high-frequency earthquake waves
Much like our voices create sound waves with a variety of low and high pitches, or frequencies, earthquakes also produce seismic waves over a …
October 26, 2012
Voices: Judged unfairly in L'Aquila - roles and responsibilities should have been considered
Earlier this week, an Italian judge summarily convicted seven participants in a meeting of the Italian Serious Risks Commission who evaluated the …
October 22, 2012
Hazardous Living: Italian seismologists tragically convicted of manslaughter
Today, six seismologists and one government official were convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to six years in prison. The seismologists and …
May 25, 2012
Better warnings for the consequences of earthquakes: Bringing seismic hazard and risk assessments to policy
During the last decade, earthquakes have taken a heavy toll on lives, shocking the world. Two exceptionally large earthquakes off the coasts of …
April 17, 2012
Managing the seismic risk posed by wastewater disposal
From an earthquake perspective, 2011 was a remarkable year. While the devastation accompanying the magnitude-9.0 Tohoku earthquake that occurred …
January 20, 2012
Voices: Italian seismologists: What should they have said?
In Italy, seismologists who failed to predict the L’Aquila earthquake in 2009 could face manslaughter charges. On March 31, 2009, the Major Risks …
January 5, 2012
US earthquakes actually a powerful Siberian quake
A magnitude-7.3 earthquake in Siberia Monday was mistaken by U.S. seismometers as temblors in Idaho and California. The actual quake occurred …
January 5, 2012
Tsunami kills hundreds in Indonesia
Updated on Oct. 28, 2010: The death toll has continued to rise from the natural disasters that struck Indonesia Monday and Tuesday. Currently, …
January 5, 2012
Thinking outside the rocks in the search for ancient earthquakes
The eyewitness accounts, written in columns from right to left, top to bottom, testify that there was no warning of the tsunami, no shaking to …