A project developed by a seismologist in California enlists the help of laptop owners for monitoring and predicting earthquakes.
At UC Riverside Earth Sciences, seismologist Elizabeth Cochran has developed a program whereby the public can help monitor earthquakes on their laptop computers. It is called “Quake-Catcher Network”.
Most new laptops contain a safety device called an accelerometer which is a motion sensor and the earth’s motion can be picked up. Using a built-in feature like this will enable no extra cost for anyone interested in joining this project.
The laptop owner installs the program which transmits data to a central server. When unusual or intense activity is detected, it sends warnings to earthquake monitoring systems and to other laptops. With the speed of the Internet, the warnings should be faster than the traditional underground sensor stations.
This network is planned to be available world-wide. Not only will it be able to alert areas where the quake is about to hit, it will enable scientists to further their studies on seismic activity.
The more laptops that join the network, the better the activity can be pinpointed because there will be more readings available in specific areas when seismic activity occurs. Monitoring can be done in areas where traditional sensors are not installed.
At the present time, only Apple laptop owners can participate but the program developers are working on a portable accelerometer that can be hooked up to a USB port on desktops and PC laptops.
The software is undergoing final testing and will be available this summer as a free download through a website called BOINC. At the present time, it is being tested on a limited basis.
Elizabeth Cochran plans to allow access to the data gathered on the sensors to the public and to researchers.
This will be a fantastic project for classrooms and anyone interested in earth sciences.
Source: Science Daily
