State and federal geological agencies are teaming up with the California Institute of Technology to give Southern California the start of an early warning system for earthquakes.
The trio - Caltech, the US Geological Survey, and the Division of Mines and Geology of the State Department of Conservation - is in the process of placing nearly 600 instruments throughout Southern California to enhance a seismic information network, a system they hope will result in more earthquake-resistant buildings and more responsive emergency management teams.
"This gives us a system that's very practical," said Tom Heaton, professor of engineering at CalTech.
"We can use the information to predict the nature of the ground movement and to predict future big quakes," he said.
The project, called TriNet, will cost more than US$20 million, with most of that coming from the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the wake of the 1994 Northridge, California earthquake.
By increasing the number of stations on the seismic network, seismologists hope to have a more accurate reading of the composition of the earth's crust as well as the earth's physics, said Heaton. And they will get the information more quickly, a step that will likely lead to an advanced warning system for emergency response teams, Heaton added.
For example, rescue teams would see a map generated minutes after a big earthquake that would highlight the areas that were hit hardest. This information could be used to perform a form of triage, allowing firefighters and other emergency agencies to dispatch their resources in the areas that needed the most help.
Each of the 600 instruments includes a computer hooked up to a seismometer, a device that monitors constant seismic activity. All these instruments will be connected to a high-speed digital network to send this data to CalTech and the USGS. A smaller network of strong-motion devices - instruments that trigger only during dramatic seizmic activity to take a snapshot of the movement - will also feed into this network.
But TriNet isn't the only seismic study and warning system in California. UC Berkeley, together with the Northern California branch of the USGS, is building a digital seismic network to provide the same information for engineers and appropriate agencies such as CalTrans and Pacific Gas and Electric. Currently, the network includes more than 400 seismometers stretching from the Oregon border down to San Luis Obispo.
Michale Antolik, a post-doctoral researcher at UC Berkeley's Seismographic Station, said the goals of the network are the same for TriNet.
