When events such as the Aug 28 2016 Amatrice earthquake occur, we seismologists are asked to answer scientific questions and to give an immediate judgment of the situation. Such questions may be asked by media officers during formal interviews or by friends and family members in person or even on the social networks in informal settings (sometimes only a few seconds after the earthquake’s occurren ...[Read More]
I have just been asked: “do you shun field work as most seismologists do?” My answer was “Definitely not!”. I was trained as a geologist but my PhD in computational seismology kept me away from the field for a while. Yet, today I have a story to tell you as I am just back from my first seismological field trip. Two months ago my research group deployed a network of seismic stations in ...[Read More]
Most seismologist see earthquakes regularly on screen. We look at the wiggles and try to process them so that we can find useful information about the Earth’s structure. But did you ever listen to earthquakes? Here are just some links to pages where you can dive into the earthquake sounds: Listening to earthquakes on USGS On soundcloud Earthquake music Seismic Sound Lab of the Lamont-Doherty ...[Read More]
What was your first experience of an earthquake? Was it scary? Weird? Confusing? The first earthquake I have consciously noticed was a magnitude 4.something on a small fault zone not far from my home town. The wave that shook our terraced house felt like a short burst of pressure, making me briefly worry, but then laugh as it prompted my mother to shout “Stop jumping off the wardrobe!” ...[Read More]
