Summer Research Students Working at Weston Observatory on C-CIES Pilot Project 2 and Related Seismology Studies
As part of C-CIES Pilot Project 2 activities, students ranging
from high school through graduate school worked on various seismology research projects at BC's Weston Observatory. Of particular interest to C-CIES was working with several of the students on a study of the hypothesized location of a large (~M6.5) earthquake thought to have occurred in 1638 in southern NH. That location is also delineated by a major zone of current seismicity (which might be aftershocks of the 1638 earthquake). This provides an opportunity to maybe "catch" new earthquake activity in that zone using Raspberry Shakes (RSs) to augment data from other (broadband) stations operating in New England. Such improved monitoring in that area could elucidate earthquake processes there, and possibly improve our understanding of the 1638 earthquake. Our students worked on cross-correlation analysis of earthquake data in that study area, cross-correlating seismograms from different earthquakes recorded at the same RS station. The results show some cases of high cross-correlations of P waves at two RS stations, which suggests that we can use the data from RS stations in a relative location analysis to help us identify earthquake characteristics such as the fault structure on which the events occurred. The quality of the RS data we were able to use for this cross-correlation analysis, and for earthquake monitoring in the study area in general, shows the scientific utility of combining RS data with other (broadband) station data in studies of the Central and Eastern US.
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