Anticipating Earthquakes Initiative

Most earthquakes occur when blocks of rock under extraordinary pressure slip past each other along faults in the Earth. In California, for example, the North American and the Pacific plate move past each other along the San Andreas Fault, one of the most hazardous faults in the world. But not all are natural: recently, human activities, such as injecting wastewater underground, have been connected to numerous earthquakes in regions where seismic activity is otherwise rare.

Earthquakes can kill thousands of people as structures collapse, landslides are triggered, and tsunamis form. In the last two decades alone, a surge of huge, so-called “great” earthquakes caused hundreds of thousands of fatalities and billions of dollars in economic losses as shaking and associated landslides and tsunamis devastated cities. Nearly all of these recent great earthquakes upended previously held ideas about the way earthquakes work.

Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory has broad expertise and a distinctive suite of novel analytical capabilities in earthquake seismology, active-source geophysics, rock mechanics, field geology, and physical models, making us global leaders in the field. 

Our rich history of breakthroughs in earthquake science have revolutionized understanding of how our planet works. Among our firsts:

• Our scientists were the first to provide definitive seismological evidence to support the theory of plate tectonics and continental drift. 
• We developed the first maps to show the potential of the circum-Pacific to produce major earthquakes in the area known as the “The ring of fire.” 
• We discovered that the inner core of the Earth rotates at a different speed than the rest of the planet.

With a powerful combination of research strengths and facilities, we are able to make major advances in understanding faults and our ability to anticipate earthquakes:

• Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory’s R/V Marcus G. Langseth is the world’s premier academic seismic research vessel, with 3D mapping capabilities for imaging megathrust faults and other structures deep below the ocean floor that can create destructive great earthquakes and tsunamis.
• We operate a network of seismometers throughout the Northeastern United States for detecting and publicizing earthquakes in the mid-Atlantic region, including New York and Washington, D.C. metropolitan areas.
• In the Lamont Rock & Ice Mechanics Lab, we subject rocks to pressures and temperatures that simulate conditions deep in the Earth where earthquakes start. We create physical models of fault zones that allow us to take earthquake physics from the lab to real-world scales.
• Our Ocean-Bottom Seismology Laboratory deploys cutting-edge seafloor instrumentation in all of the world’s oceans to monitor earthquakes.

• Lamont scientists travel the world to tectonic hotspots such as east Africa, western Pacific islands, the eastern Pacific Ocean, Bangladesh, and northern America deploying seismic and geodetic equipment on land and on the ocean floor to study major earthquake faults in detail. These focused studies provide critical knowledge about fault behavior within high-density population zones that are poorly characterized by global monitoring. They also provide an opportunity to increase local capability for hazard assessment and response.
• Our scientists and engineers in the Rock & Ice Mechanics Lab are investigating the physics of earthquakes through experiments such as understanding fault slip in subduction zones, including the 2011 Japan tsunami fault. We are also leading studies of how wastewater disposal leads to human induced seismicity, and how small stress changes such as tides can trigger fault slip.
• The Precision Seismology group is developing “big data” computational tools to image seismicity and active faults with unprecedented resolution in real-time, in terrestrial and submarine environments worldwide. These tools have discovered streaks and patches of repeating earthquakes that have provided a fundamentally new view of the distribution of seismic activity on an active fault.
• Lamont’s marine seismologists are using the R/V Langseth to improve understanding of tsunami-producing earthquakes by imaging the megathrust faults that produce them and contrasting those faults with similar faults that don’t seem to produce such earthquakes.
• Our Global CMT Project tracks earthquakes, landslides, and other seismic activity in real time, providing quick data about location, timing, direction of movement and other forces for researchers worldwide.