Real-Time Quake Detection

Reported April 2006

SAN DIEGO (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) -- The first few hours following a major earthquake are critical for seismologists, rescuers and people living in the quake zone. Now, researchers can estimate where a quake made its biggest impact within 30 minutes after a big earthquake.

It was a deadly quake that shook the world. Hundreds of thousands of people died. Kris Walker, a seismologist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, says, "It actually took days before the true size of that earthquake was determined."

If, in the first minutes, seismologists had known how large the quake was and exactly where it occurred, they'd have recognized a powerful and widespread tsunami would soon follow. "If our technique was used and had there been adequate communication infrastructure in that area, we would have been able to save a lot of lives," Walker says.

Walker and fellow seismologist Peter Shearer have devised a method to rapidly determine how much surface shaking is generated from the epicenter of a large quake. "What we're able to learn within 10 to 20 minutes of when the earthquake started is about which fault ruptured and where the rupture went," Shearer says.

Earthquakes produce seismic waves. The first waves detected by seismic stations are called p-waves. Once the quake is detected, earth scientists can back track to find where the quake started. Shearer says, "You get a prediction like this, in gray, of the area that experienced the greatest surface shaking."

This new, faster method of sizing up earthquakes can buy important time for people in the first hour following a major earthquake.

By the end of this year, the U.S. geological survey in Colorado will be using the back-projection method to analyze earthquakes anywhere in the world. It could become part of a worldwide warning system.

Click here to Go Inside This Science or contact:

Kris Walker, Seismologist
Scripps Institute of Oceanography
University of California at San Diego
walker@ucsd.edu
858 534-0126

For more information about earth sciences:

American Geophysical Union
2000 Florida Avenue N.W.
Washington, DC 20009-1277 USA
1-800-966-2481
http://www.agu.org/

Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology
1200 New York Ave. NW, Suite 800
Washington, DC 20005

John Taber
Education & Outreach Program Manager
(202) 682-2220
taber@iris.edu

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