Science for Everyone

The darkest place on Earth may be deep within a cave, but the quietest place on Earth is deep within the Antarctic ice. If you want to listen to the softest whispers of the Earth, South Pole, Antarctica is where you want to be. Seismic station, QSPA (Quiet South Pole, Antarctica) has been allowing us to eavesdrop on the Earth for over six decades, and it may soon gain the equivalent of hearing aid...

Release Date: MARCH 12, 2021On January 20, 2021 at 8:32am light shaking interrupted breakfast customers at a local coffee shop south of downtown Los Angeles, California. Everyone paused briefly while they waited to see if it was going to stop… or start shaking harder.

Release Date: JULY 6, 2020In 1722 and 1723 a London clockmaker, George Graham, observed daily and consistent variations on one of his instruments, a “Needle upon the Pin” (a compass), for which he had no explanation. Swedish scientists obtained some of Graham’s instruments to record what is now known to be the variations in Earth’s magnetic field. In 1741, they noticed a significant deflection of...

Release Date: MAY 29, 2020Residents in California, Oregon, and Washington have been told that earthquake early warning (EEW) is at their doorstep and will alert them to the shaking from an earthquake before it arrives. Some media reports have said there will be “up to a minute of warning”. The problem is, for onshore earthquakes these claims are exaggerated, and under some conditions a warning is...

Release Date: OCTOBER 17, 2019How will ShakeAlert® likely perform now on a large earthquake impacting a major urban area? How much warning will you get? To answer this, let’s do a thought experiment...

Release Date: OCTOBER 8, 2019The goal of an earthquake early warning (EEW) system is to provide an alert to people and automatic systems after an earthquake begins but before the shaking reaches their location. As the USGS and its partners are developing an EEW system, called ShakeAlert®, for the West Coast, the benefits, costs, capabilities, and limitations are being investigated. Two recent...

Release Date: SEPTEMBER 30, 2019Two of the first questions that come to mind for anyone who just felt an earthquake are, “Will there be another one?” and “Will it be larger?”.

Release Date: APRIL 25, 2019New high-resolution lidar data reveals cracks produced from strong shaking in past earthquakes in the New Madrid seismic zone.

Release Date: FEBRUARY 4, 2019A project to scan a small selection of the film chips of historical earthquake recordings to digital files was started in 1996. In addition to archiving historic data from the early years, the USGS has also worked to archive photos and descriptions of early seismometers.

Release Date: NOVEMBER 12, 2018A new picture of the geometry of subducting slabs around the world, the locations of the world’s largest earthquakes.

Release Date: OCTOBER 12, 2018Complex geologic sites, like those between the fault segments along the Wasatch fault zone in Utah, make the dating and ordering past earthquakes a difficult task. Two new methods were used to make this task easier and to get better results.

Release Date: JULY 16, 2018A new more detailed and higher resolution map of the Rodgers Creek Fault in Sonoma County, California, has been produced using aerial photography and hillshade imagery derived from LiDAR data.

Release Date: JUNE 18, 2018A new map of crustal stress across the U.S. shows that the plate interior stress is variable, with contributions from plate boundary stress, crustal collapse due to gravity, and more local and subtle changes to style, orientation, and earthquake rate.

Release Date: MAY 7, 2018The outcomes of past aftershock sequences can be used to describe the range of possibilities for a current sequence.

Release Date: APRIL 30, 2018The eastern edge of Panamint Valley,CA has two types of faults that can be seen in the near-surface geology. 150 geophones and a seismic source will help reveal the subsurface picture.

Release Date: MARCH 26, 2018A building in Japan was analyzed before and after a seismic retrofit to make it more resilient to shaking.

Release Date: JANUARY 2, 2018A new study shows that DC geologic conditions strongly affect earthquake shaking.

Release Date: JUNE 1, 2017Investigating Past Earthquakes to Inform the FutureWhat does the science say? Where does the information come from? And what does it mean? Investigating past earthquakes to inform the future. Maybe you’ve heard that the “Big One is overdue” on the San Andreas Fault. No one can predict earthquakes, so what does the science really say? Where does the information come from...

Release Date: DECEMBER 1, 2016Old-fashioned interviews are compared to Did You Feel It? responses for this earthquake.

Release Date: OCTOBER 1, 2016A large shallow earthquake moves Mt. Everest 3 cm southwest.

Release Date: JUNE 1, 2015What is a splay fault, and how can they affect tsunamis?* completely contrived term by this author, not a scientific term or theory

Release Date: May 1, 2015How seismologists can use noise to see under the ground.

Release Date: FEBRUARY 1, 2015Paleoseismology along the Wasatch Fault in Utah is helping to estimate the shaking risk to nearby towns.