C A M P U S C U R R E N T

Earthquakes: Perception vs. Reality

By GREG LYZENGA ’75

is to post news of recent earthquakes. Since my students and I operate a seismometer on campus that is capable of providing broadband records of global earthquakes, it’s an opportunity to educate and inform on a subject that fascinates most people. When a large or noteworthy earthquake occurs someplace, I

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usually display an instrumental record of the event from our lab, along with some basic statistics describing the earthquake, but I usually leave it at that. Why is that? Why not more description of the destruction? Perhaps I’m feeling that pang of remorse that geophysicists feel when they realize that a scientifi cally “inter- esting” event sometimes translates into acute human suffering in another part of the world. While that may be part of the reason for my reserve, I have another reason in mind. Inevitably when it happens that a se-

Student researchers perform GPS measure- ments of tectonic movement as part of their research with Greg Lyzenga, profes- sor of physics.

ries of devastating quakes occurs, as with the recent Haiti and Chile events, I’m asked by people whether the events are related, or unusual in their timing or frequency. In extreme cases, people even wonder whether the disasters that oc- cupy center stage on the evening news at a seemingly accelerating rate aren’t the signs of an approaching apocalypse of some kind. I always try to reassure the inquirer that earthquakes large and small are occurring every day around the world at a more or less steady rate. It’s just because of the unfortunate fact that particular earthquakes occur in regions

of high population density and/or vulnerable infrastructure that those events occupy a disproportionately large space in the public consciousness. This tendency is further magnifi ed by the instantaneous communications we enjoy today with even the most remote parts of the globe. Most people outside of Chile have no cul- tural memory at all of the world’s largest recorded earthquake in modern times, the magnitude 9.5 quake of 1960. Had that event been covered live by CNN and the resulting tsunami arrival in Hawaii been broadcast live on YouTube, the events

ike all the faculty offi ces here in the Harvey Mudd Physics Department, next to my door is a bulletin board area for posting assorted news, pictures, jokes and the like. One of the ways I’ve used this space outside my door over the years

F a c u l t y N e w s

When I explain how relatively unremarkable the earthquake activity we observe today is as compared with previous centuries, some people are accepting, but others remain a bit

skeptical. – Greg Lyzenga ’75

surrounding this February’s magnitude 8.8 event would not have seemed quite so unprecedented. The time scale for the repeat of geophysical events is often much longer than the time scale of modern cultural memory. It’s somewhat ironic that in the tragic tsunami following the magnitude 9.1 Suma- tra earthquake in 2004, some indigenous populations with an oral tradition of ocean lore that is centuries old were able to avoid harm, while modern tourists were largely unaware of the approaching danger. When I explain how relatively unremarkable the earth-

quake activity we observe today is as compared with previ- ous centuries, some people are accepting, but others remain a bit skeptical. I suppose that is why I keep posting earthquake recordings outside my door, relatively unadorned with edito- rial comment. Regardless of whether it is an earthquake felt by millions in metropolitan Tokyo, or a quake in the South Sandwich Islands, felt by nobody except a few penguins, it goes up on my board. Well... at least that’s my intent. I’m sure I’m swayed to some extent by the “popularity factor” in some

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H a r v e y Mu d d C o l l e g e S P R I N G 2 0 1 0

GREG LYZENGA

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