GD
Geodynamics

Rajani Shrestha

Rajani Shrestha is a graduate student in the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences at Caltech. She is interested in both earthquake seismology and global seismology for earth structure and dynamics. She completed her MS from the University of Delaware where she investigated the deformational signals observed along the eastern North American margin using seismic anisotropy. You can reach Rajani via e-mail.

Going Around Mars

February 5, 2025
Going Around Mars
The National Geographic Map of Mars. (Image Credit: National Geographic Society, MOLA Science Team, MSS, JPL, NASA.)

One of our closest neighbors in the universe, the red planet, has long intrigued geoscientists. Mars has been the destination for multiple spacecraft missions. Two rovers, Curiosity and Perseverance, are still exploring the planet as of 2025. This week, let us go on a short tour around Mars and show a little love to this fascinating planet. We will start our tour by looking at the global topograph ...[Read More]

4th Cargèse School on Earthquakes: Nucleation, Triggering, Rupture, and Relationships to Aseismic Processes

October 30, 2024
Group photograph of the participants of the 4th edition of Cargèse school on earthquakes. Credit: Anthony Sladen.
Participants of the 4th edition of Cargèse school on earthquakes. Credit: Anthony Sladen.

How do earthquakes nucleate? How do they arrest? Can we predict or control them? How do fault zone structure and rheology influence rupture? What do earthquakes in the lab tell us? How does fluid injection modulate seismicity? The Institut des Etudes Scientifiques de Cargèse (IESC) premise in Corsica, France was abuzz with discussions about these and many other related questions this October. The ...[Read More]

Ambient seismic wavefield: how noise can be a signal

February 23, 2023
Ambient seismic wavefield: how noise can be a signal
Trace of a seismogram recording background noise

Every now and then, the surface of our planet shakes violently during earthquakes like the recent magnitudes 7.8 and 7.5 Kahramanmaraş Earthquake Sequence in Türkiye. These vibrations are recorded by instruments called seismometers and are then processed and analyzed by seismologists to study the earthquake processes themselves as well as other deep Earth structures. Interestingly, seismometers al ...[Read More]

Magnets are cool, and….. so is the Earth!

November 23, 2022
Magnets are cool, and….. so is the Earth!

Magnets are cool, who does not like them? And the planet that we live in, the Earth, itself is a huge magnet. Not only does the Earth’s magnetic field protect us from harmful radiation from space, but it can also help us reveal some of the secrets of our planet. Local variations in the magnetic field can be used to probe the subsurface of the Earth from crustal to mantle depths. Although there is ...[Read More]