Faculty History

• Earthquake Early Warnings Launch in Washington, Completing West Coast-wide ShakeAlert System
  

  When the Big One hits, the first thing Washington residents notice may not be the ground shaking, but their phone issuing a warning. The U.S. Geological Survey, the University ... - Read More

• UW Launches GeoHazards Initiative; Names Paros Chair in Seismology and GeoHazards
  

  The UW’s GeoHazards Initiative aims to study earthquakes, tsunamis, landslides and volcanos to prevent the loss of life and property.

  Leveraging ... - Read More

• Deep Earthquakes Within the Juan De Fuca Plate Produce Few Aftershocks
  

  In the Cascadia subduction zone, medium- and large-sized "intraslab" earthquakes, in which the slip happens within the oceanic plate and below the continental plate, will ... - Read More

• UW AISES Rocketry Team Competing in First Nations Launch
  The UW chapter of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES) is competing this year for the first time in the First Nations Launch sponsored by NASA Wisconsin ... - Read More

• Arctic Lightning Up 300% in One 11-Year Study (EOS)
  Holzworth and his collaborators found that the fraction of lightning occurring in the Arctic increased from roughly 0.2% in 2010 to a little over 0.6% in 2020. That threefold ... - Read More

• More on Arctic Lightning from the WWLLN Network
  Following the published paper (https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2020GL091366 ... - Read More

• Warming Temperatures Tripled Arctic Lightning Strikes over the Past Decade
  Lightning strikes in the Arctic tripled from 2010 to 2020, a finding University of Washington researchers attribute to rising temperatures due to human-caused climate change. The ... - Read More

• Greenland Was Ice Free Some Time in the Last Million Years
  A paper in Proceedings of National Academy of Science, led by postdoc Drew Christ at the University of Vermont, with his advisor Paul Bierman (ESS alumn), along with Eric Steig ... - Read More

• Is Potassium a Key to Understanding the Ocean’s Past?
  When looking at a periodic table, potassium might not be the first element you’re drawn to – distracted instead by gold, copper or silver. But a new paper published in Science ... - Read More

• Nisqually Earthquake 20 Years Later -- Are We Prepared for the Next Big One? | KIRO 7
  It's been 20 years since the Nisqually earthquake shook the region. It was one of the biggest earthquakes to rattle the area in decades. The UW's Bill Steele, director of outreach ... - Read More

• Opinion: Twenty Years After 6.8 Nisqually Earthquake, Are We Ready for the Next One? | The Seattle Times
  "The passing of decades quickly lulls us into a false sense of complacency, but another earthquake just like Nisqually -- or worse -- could happen at any time. Knowing that the ... - Read More

• Holzworth Discusses WWLLN and Lightning Science on German Public Radio
  An interview featuring Prof. Robert Holzworth and other lightning scientists was broadcast 2/25 on German Public Radio (Bavaria station). The interview covered recent ... - Read More

• Fleets of Radar Satellites Are Measuring Movements on Earth Like Never Before | Science
  Individual GPS stations can track surface movements of less than 1 millimeter, but a technique called interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) can measure changes almost ... - Read More

• The First Organism to Use Oxygen May Have Appeared Surprisingly Early | Science
  The first organisms to "breathe" oxygen -- or at least use it -- appeared 3.1 billion years ago, according to a new genetic analysis of dozens of families of microbes. Roger ... - Read More

• Fossilized Teeth Flesh out the Tale of the Earliest Primates | GeekWire
  The shapes of fossilized teeth from 65.9 million-year-old, squirrel-like creatures suggest that the branch of the tree of life that gave rise to us humans and other primates ... - Read More

• State Asks People to Opt-in to Earthquake Early Warning System Test Alert Thursday
  For years, UW has been working with many other groups to create ShakeAlert. The early warning system uses a network of seismic sensors -- 300 alone in the state of Washington -- ... - Read More

• State Continues Work to Install Early Warning Earthquake System Despite COVID-19 | KOMO 4
  The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has not slowed work to track earthquake activity around Western Washington, and in fact, experts say they have made more progress in their efforts ... - Read More

• Quakes off Oregon Coast, on Rainier Are Typical and Wouldn't Have Triggered Forthcoming ShakeAlert System | The Seattle Times
  A cluster of small earthquakes far off the southern Oregon coast and atop Mount Rainier in recent days are common events, and would not have triggered a seismic warning system set ... - Read More

• 'ShakeAlert' Earthquake Early Warning System Nearing Release in Washington | KIMA
  After years of development, a West Coast earthquake early warning system will be ready to send alerts to your phone in a matter of weeks. The much-anticipated system rolls out in ... - Read More

• Q&A: ShakeAlert Earthquake Early Warning System Arriving in Pacific Northwest
  

  After years in development, an earthquake early warning system known as Read More

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