2000 - 2001 Public
Lecture Series
at Caltech
Please join us as we launch a new Public Lecture Series!
October 24 - Tuesday
Living
With Earthquakes in Southern California Lucy Jones, USGS
January 18 -Thursday
The
Music of Earthquakes Andy Michael, USGS
March 15- Thursday
Did
You Feel It? David Wald, USGS
May 1-Tuesday
Pent-up
Stress Puts the Squeeze on L.A. Ken Hudnut, USGS
October
24 - Tuesday
Living
With Earthquakes in Southern California Lucy Jones, USGS
Enjoy Earthquakes 101 with southern
California's "Seismo-Mom". We just happen to live right next to the boundary
between the North American Plate and the Pacific Plate. We know that boundary
as the San Andreas Fault. Some day this fault will produce a large earthquake,
but other faults all over southern California produce an average of 30 earthquakes
each day . We will talk about foreshocks, mainshocks and aftershocks in southern
California, and we will cover all the things you should know about earthquakes
as a resident of earthquake country.
See the Putting Down Roots
in Earthquake Country webpage for more information.
January
18 -Thursday
The Music
of Earthquakes Andy Michael, USGS
The Music of Earthquakes mixes performance
and lecture, music and science, acoustic instruments and computer generated
sounds. A musician controls the source of the sound and the path it travels
through their instrument in order to make sound waves that we hear as music.
An earthquake is the source of waves that travel along a path through the earth
until reaching us as shaking. It is almost as if the earth is a musician and
people, including seismologists, are the audience who must try to understand
what the music means. By listening to both music and the audio playbacks of
the earth shaking, we will explore this analogy and find new ways to learn about
the earth, earthquakes, musical instruments and music.
See the Earthquake Quartet #1
webpage for more information.
March
15 - Thursday
Did You
Feel It? David Wald, USGS
The most common information available
immediately following an earthquake is the location and magnitude. However,
what we really want to know is where the shaking was felt, and in the case of
emergency response, where it shook the most. Two new systems can now answer
these questions within minutes following an earthquake. ShakeMaps show the distribution
of earthquake shaking in southern California as measured by the seismic instruments.
Community Internet Intensity Maps also show the areas of greatest shaking, but
they require the input of Internet users to show where the earthquake was felt
and how strongly it shook. Both are available on the Internet. We will talk
about how each of these maps are created, what they can be used for, and how
you can help.
See the Did You Feel It? and
ShakeMap webpages for more information.
May
1 -Tuesday
Pent-up
Stress Puts the Squeeze on L.A. Ken Hudnut, USGS
The ground beneath our feet moves
a little bit each day. Which direction it is going, and how fast it is going
there, tells us something about the earthquake potential in southern California.
The Global Positioning System (GPS) has recently become more widely used in
our society, but can your GPS unit tell you where you are within a fraction
of a millimeter? We will talk about the Southern California Integrated GPS Network
that is continuously monitoring the slow movements of the crust in our region,
how it measures locations to within a fraction of a millimeter, and why that
accuracy is necessary.
See the Southern California Integrated
GPS Network webpage for more information.