Seismic Activity essays

Seismic Activity essays California has 200 or more faults capable of producing large earthquakes. Some of the faults are hidden and some visible at the surface. The biggest concentration of faults are in the San Adreas fault zone and the San Jacinto fault zone. Because of Californias large amount of Fault lines the United States Geological Survey, the California division of mines and Geology, the California Institute and other agencies have developed the Southern California Earthquake Center and TriNet Seismic network. This organization monitors the earthquake activity. The seismographs are linked to a computer using a mix of GPS and Landlines . The seismography records are sent to a computer within a few minutes. The information is a available to the public via the Internet. Data at this site is saved to a catalog that are searchable by various parameters. After creating the project using ArcView GIS or Arc View 3D analyst, the next step was to determine the projects objective and scope. Once the data was obtained and converted, maps could be created and analysis performed. The projects objective was to ascertain whether there was a pattern to the earthquakes in Southern California. The area chosen stretches approximately 67 miles by 50 miles. The time frames was 6 months. The SCEC Data center Earthquake and Hypocenter and Phase database was queried for data. Available search parameters were data about magnitudes, start and end date, minimum and maximum depths and Longitude and Latitude. A second site from Cal Tech and the USGS was also used. Time measurements from the SCEC site were converted to Pacific standard time for use with Cal Tech/USGS data. Latittude and longitude measurement in degrees from Cal Tech site were converted to decimal degrees. The highway and street data (from arcview) were used. The highways around the area was selected. Data from the internet was used to determine where ...