After 100 years of shaking, Caltech’s Seismo Lab continues to study – Pasadena Star News

If you’ve been through a major earthquake in Southern California and found yourself turning to the news to make sense of the shaking and destruction, chances are you’ve heard from scientists at the Seismo Lab .

On Saturday, November 12, visitors flocked to Caltech’s Beckman Auditorium to celebrate the renowned lab – part of a pandemic-postponed centennial.

Among the scientists paying tribute was Dr. Lucy Jones, founder of the Dr. Lucy Jones Center for Science and Society and beloved science communicator.

Over the past few decades, Jones has reached out from the Seismo Lab, through televisions and radios, in the aftermath of major earthquakes to help soothe the frayed nerves of frightened audiences.

“What happens after the event, since there is no lead, now we are dealing with people who have suddenly been changed, are scared because of it,” Jones said on Saturday. at Caltech, reflecting on the value of the lab. “And a big part of what we do, why journalists come to Seismo Lab after the earthquake, is when we give the earthquake a name, we give it a number, we give it a fault, we say ‘someone understands this.’ And it reduces the fear.

The Seismo Lab began life in 1921 on a mountain, north of Pasadena, where the lab could erect its instruments on bedrock, allowing for more accurate readings. The lab was later moved to a mansion on San Rafael Avenue, and in 1974 moved again to its current home on the Caltech campus.

Throughout its long life, the laboratory has been at the forefront of seismological research. In the 1930s, the lab was home to physicists Charles Richter and Beno Gutenberg who together developed the eponymous Richter scale – a major breakthrough at a time when earthquakes were mainly measured on the basis of subjective observations of the damage that occurred. they were producing.

In close partnership with the USGS (located across from the Caltech campus), the Seismo Lab provides seismic data used by other organizations to study the potential risk to life and property posed by land development projects in southern California.

Brian Olson, a geological engineer at the California Geological Survey, described how his organization uses data from the USGS and the Seismo Lab to identify land areas at risk in the event of an earthquake, “we take science and turn it into an application with an objective toward public safety.”

Olson was one of the earthquake preparedness experts and practitioners who presented the fair. Along with the California Geological Survey, tables have been maintained by FEMA and the Red Cross, among others. The tables were visited by a steady stream of onlookers, who flipped through brochures and peppered the experts with issues ranging from science to property development.

After the fair, a line formed as hundreds of people waited to enter the auditorium to watch the panel titled ‘Shaking In Our Seats’, a review of what Hollywood has done right. and evil when depicting earthquakes.

Panelists included Domniki Asimaki, Caltech Professor of Mechanical and Civil Engineering; Assemblyman Chris Holden, D-Pasadena; Jon O’Brien, acting chief deputy of the Los Angeles County Fire Department; Zhongwen Zhan, Professor of Geophysics at Caltech and was moderated by Dr Jones.

Audiences laughed and clapped at corny, over-the-top depictions of scientists and earthquakes as the panel bonhomically analyzed fact and fiction in the scenes.

At one point, Dr Jones candidly asked Assemblyman Holden what the relationship between scientists and politicians should be when it comes to earthquakes. “You have to believe in the science, and you have to believe in the data…” the assemblyman replied. “Having data, getting the scientific community to be part of this formulation of a message, I think is essential.”

Today, the Seismo Lab provides real-time data for the California Earthquake Early Warning System, which not only warns the public of an earthquake precious seconds before they feel the tremor, but also triggers mechanisms automated safety features such as automatically opening elevator doors to ensure passengers can escape, opening fire station bays so emergency vehicles are not trapped, and shutting off gas lines before they break.

In this invisible way, the Seismo Lab helps to mitigate disasters from the first tremors, a step towards reducing the uncertainty that makes earthquakes so terrifying.

“I’ve come to realize that the lack of predictability is one of the reasons we’re so afraid of earthquakes…” Dr Jones said. “We’re more afraid of things that you don’t know are happening, that you can’t see, that don’t seem to be understood.”