Quakefinder Blog

We at Stellar Solutions/QuakeFinder wish a special Happy Holidays all our “hosts” who let us use their property for our instruments, all of our sponsors (Stellar Solutions, NASA, Musk Foundation, PG&E, Telefonica-Peru, and Vodafone) for all their generous support, all our collaborators (PUCP-Peru, NCU-Taiwan, NOA-Greece, SETI in California, Stanford Geophysics, and USGS), and you, or web visitors, who are interested in our research and progress.  It has been a great year, getting our instrument count well over 100 sites, upgrading our website, and getting closer to understanding our “restless Earth” and her frequent outbursts, aka–earthquakes.  The best to you and your families and the warmest wishes for a happy and safe New Year.

We rolled out our new website yesterday morning. It has a wider format, better handling of user accounts, and is more secure than our prior implementation. We are still ironing out a few ripples that have cropped up, mostly having to do with transferring user accounts from the old web framework to the new one. Some of you who joined in the time period 12/14 – 12/19 will be receiving an email regarding how to re-activate your accounts. Thanks to everyone who pitched in to complete the project!!

QuakeFinder just completed the installation of 4 new instruments in Greece to complement the 4 units currently there.  Two of the new units were installed in the Corinth area of Greece, west of Athens, and 2 units on Santorini Island in the southern Aegean Sea.  Santorini was the site of a gigantic volcanic explosion 3600 years ago, and created a crater almost 11 km long by 6 km wide and spawned a huge tsunami that wiped out the Minoan civilization on Crete, 110 km to the south. According to some local legends, it is the site of the destroyed the city of Atlantis. The reason that this area was selected is based on concerns of the seismic community about Santorini relative to some recent rumbling inside the caldera area during January 2011 and April 2012. One of the 2 sites on Santorini is next to the archeological excavations at Akrotiri (Acrotiri), the ancient port city of Thira (Santorini). We also have a second unit to the east of Fira, the main city on the edge of the caldera. With the city of Fira situated on the 800-900 ft cliffs looking down on the caldera, and Acrotiri buried under 30m of ash, these two sites have to get the award for the most visually spectacular locations associated of the entire QuakeFinder network of 112 sites.

Sunday’s M7.2 earthquake in Turkey more evidence that we should be there QuakeFinder is in the midst of a major expansion of its instrument network. One of the locations we plan to expand into is Turkey. Lead researcher Tom Bleier will be making a trip to the region next month. But unfortunately, he will only be visiting Greece on this trip, as the installation in Turkey is delayed due to political changes. We hope to be able to get that part of the project back on track for installation next year. The earthquake that struck the eastern part of the country (coverage here and here) on Sunday is a reminder of why we selected Turkey for expansion of our network. The region is prone to significant quakes, with the last really big one striking in 1999 and killing almost 20,000 people. No wonder then that researchers there are very active in the search for a practical method for forecasting major quakes. QuakeFinder has been collaborating with Dr. Sedat Inan in Turkey (associated with their research center under the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey, TUBITAK). The goal is to join with them in adding magnetic pulses and air conductivity to their ongoing research into earthquake precursors, and ultimately, to save lives.