December 2, 2003

David E. Steitz
Headquarters, Washington 
(Phone: 202/358-0474)

Alan Buis 
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
(Phone: 818/354-0474)

NOTE TO EDITORS: N03-135

NASA CONTRIBUTES TO EARTHQUAKE RESEARCH

Ten years ago next month, Southern California was rocked by the deadly 
magnitude 6.7 Northridge earthquake, one of the costliest natural 
disasters in U.S. history. The quake was preceded by concentrated 
pre-earthquake strain in the region, detected by sparse readings from 
newly developed Global Positioning System (GPS) deformation monitors. 


NASA's unique contributions to this rapidly maturing field of study 
and implications of this research for mitigating future seismic 
hazards are the focus of a Earth Science Update, Thursday, 1 p.m. EST 
in NASA's Webb Auditorium, 300 E Street S.W., Washington.

In the 10 years since the devastating Northridge earthquake, a high 
tech GPS based ground deformation network was installed within 
Southern California. It provides a continuous measurement of ground 
deformation at 250 locations with a precision of a few millimeters.

Advances in satellite based radar Interferometric Synthetic Aperture 
Radar and lidar are combined with the GPS measurements to provide 
images of ground deformation for the entire Southern California 
earthquake region. Researchers obtained very surprising results, from 
the discovery of quiet earthquakes to imaging ground water withdrawal 
rates. These new high accuracy, space based radar, lidar, and GPS 
measurement technologies, coupled with powerful new computer modeling 
capabilities, have revitalized research in earthquake prediction with 
a new understanding of how the Earth's surface is changing.

Panelists: 

Dr. Andrea Donnellan, geophysicist and deputy manager, Earth and Space 
Sciences Division, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Dr. Bradford H. Hager, professor, Massachusetts Institute of 
Technology, Cambridge, Mass.

Dr. John B. Rundle, professor and founding director, Computational 
Science and Engineering Center, University of California, Davis, 
Calif.

Dr. Wayne Thatcher, senior research geophysicist, U.S. Geological 
Survey, Menlo Park, Calif.

Dr. James H. Whitcomb, section head for Special Projects, Earth 
Sciences Division, National Science Foundation, Arlington, Va. 

The program will be carried live on NASA Television with two-way 
question-and-answer capability from participating agency centers. 
NASA TV is available on AMC-9, transponder 9C, C-band, located at 85 
degrees west longitude. The frequency is 3880.0 MHz. Polarization is 
vertical, and audio is monaural at 6.80 MHz. Audio of the broadcast 
is available on voice circuit by calling: 321/867-1220/1240/1260.

For the live webcast, click the "Watch NASA TV Now!" link at: 

http://www.nasa.gov  

For information about NASA's Earth Science Enterprise on the Internet, 
visit: 

http://www.earth.nasa.gov/   

	
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