Laptop Earthquake Detectors

by Rich

Wednesday, March 24, 2010 at 06:45 AM EDT

The LiveScience Web site has an interesting article about a new volunteer effort, called the Quake Catcher Network, that employs ordinary laptop computers to gather data on earthquakes. The program takes advantage of the fact that many newer laptops have built-in accelerometers, designed to allow the machine’s hard disk to be shut off if the laptop is dropped. Acceleration is acceleration, of course, and the device, though less sensitive that a seismograph, can detect quakes of about magnitude 4.0 or greater. The data is captured and transmitted to seismic laboratories at Stanford University and the University of California at Riverside.

One of the difficulties in analyzing earthquakes, as with other geophysical phenomena like weather forecasting, is getting adequate data. Traditional seismic sensors cost $5,000 – $10,000, and are typically sited on a fairly coarse grid.

Thousands more computers will be necessary before the network could be used to alert outlying areas of incoming earthquakes, but Quake-Catcher already provides data that other methods can’t, said Paul Davis, a UCLA geophysicist who is not involved with the project.

“Traditional seismic stations are 10 to 20 kilometers [6 to 12 miles] apart,” Davis said. “That makes it very difficult to look at fine details, both caused by the earthquake itself as well as by the ground shaking.”

Getting data at a finer resolution would make it possible to analyze the motion of the earthquake in much more detail. With a large array of inexpensive sensors, it might even be possible to measure the differential effects of shaking on different floors of tall buildings, which could provide valuable clues to how structures can be made more earthquake resistant.

Like the project to use undersea Internet cables to help with tsunami detection, which I wrote about earlier, this is a clever “extra” use of existing technology to gather useful information.