Features

• The marquee earthquake-related event takes place Wednesday, April 21 on the UC campus. The Seismological Laboratory sponsors the annual Lawson Lecture, featuring a distinguished speaker on issues of earthquakes and society.  

This year, the lecture is entitled “Earthquake Conversations” and will be delivered by Dr. Ross Stein of the United States Geological Survey (USGS). Dr. Stein studies how earthquakes interact with each other, how faults transfer stress, and what happens when main shocks or aftershocks progress along a fault. 

“Do earthquakes talk to each other?” is how one Seismological Lab researcher describes the topic. This is a subject of more than academic interest in the Bay Area, which is seamed with interconnected faults.  

The lecture takes place April 21, from 1:30 – 2:30 p.m. at Sibley Auditorium in the Bechtel Engineering Center on the UC Berkeley campus. It’s free, and the public is encouraged to attend. 

• For excellent web-based resources on earthquakes, visit the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory at www.seismo.berkeley.edu/seismo/. 

The website includes links to a vast array of seismological sources and a “Geological Tour of Bear Territory” featuring earthquake and geology related locations you can see on and near campus. www.seismo.berkeley.edu/seismo/geotour/. 

• Around the Bay Area, institutions and organizations have joined in a 1906 Earthquake Centennial Alliance and are planning a series of coordinated events to mark the centennial of 1906, two years hence. There’s a website detailing proposed activities, and participants at http://06centennial.org/ 

• There’s also a UC campus-wide effort underway to plan for local commemorations of 1906. There will be lectures, presentations, tours, displays, and publications. For an introduction to likely events, go to www.seismo.berkeley.edu/seismo/1906/. 

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