A research grant announced Tuesday will allow seismologists to take the first steps toward an early warning system for earthquakes in the Northwest. An operational system is still a long way off, but it could eventually resemble the computerized warnings pioneered in Japan.
Back in March, some Japanese residents got an alert via cell phone or a TV screen pop-up. The alert warned them that severe shaking would begin within seconds.
Pacific Northwest Seismograph Network director John Vidale says an early warning, even of less than a minute, gives time to prepare.
"Surgeons could stop their operations. People would have time to switch to back up generators," Vidale says.
The regional warning system this University of Washington professor has in mind doesn't predict earthquakes, but takes advantage of the fact that radio waves travel far faster than the shocks of a big earthquake.
"If there's an earthquake nearby there is very little warning possible," Vidale explains. "However, if there is an earthquake over on the coast, the energy takes a minute or two to travel from the coast into the Puget Sound."
A $2 million grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation will pay for sensors on the Northwest coast and then test whether a useful warning can be transmitted in time to inland cities like Seattle, Portland, Eugene or Vancouver, BC.
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Journalist Bill Lascher contributed to this report.
On the Web:
Pacific Northwest Seismic Network:
Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation press release:
http://www.moore.org/newsitem.aspx?id=4400
Home video of earthquake warning:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYctjv7ouBc
Copyright 2011 Northwest News Network
