The U.S. Geological Survey is giving more money to the University of Oregon to fund its work on an early earthquake warning system for the west coast.
UO is a partner in the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network in the USGS-led ShakeAlert program.
Leland O’Driscoll, program manager of UO’s earth sciences department, says this developing early warning system will be used to warn people of imminent shaking after an earthquake is detected.
“What that means is that the seismic network now takes a new approach of characterizing the event right when it happens and because the speed of communications is so fast, it can actually send out a report that the earthquake happened and it’s about to travel through the region,” says O’Driscoll.
The USGS is putting 12.5 million dollars toward 7 universities and a non-profit for the earthquake early warning system. The UO’s share is 1.6 million dollars, which will go to Oregon’s seismic array and GPS monitoring.
