Monitoring Computers
Our first stop of the afternoon will be at the University of Memphis, Center for Earthquake Research Information (CERI), located at 3918 Central Ave. CERI is involved in a large variety of endeavors related to earthquakes. Some of which include: graduate studies, public information and education, and local/global earthquake research. Housed within CERI is a component group of the U. S. Geological Survey.
Since most earthquake monitoring and research today is done using computers, there isn't much to "see" at CERI. There is however lots of information and knowledge to gain. We will begin with a short tour of the physical part of CERI. We will visit the educational building. Here we will see an example of an old seismograph. While these seismographs still take readings, there is a much more sophisticated computer software system currently being used to monitor earthquakes. We will take a look at an example of this computer system, pictured here and housed within the conference center of CERI.
Since most earthquake monitoring and research today is done using computers, there isn't much to "see" at CERI. There is however lots of information and knowledge to gain. We will begin with a short tour of the physical part of CERI. We will visit the educational building. Here we will see an example of an old seismograph. While these seismographs still take readings, there is a much more sophisticated computer software system currently being used to monitor earthquakes. We will take a look at an example of this computer system, pictured here and housed within the conference center of CERI.
Seimograph
The majority of our tour will take place in the conference room of the education building. Here, an educator will give us an overview of earthquake information for the Memphis area using a Power point presentation, posters and other visual aids and a variety of hands-on demonstration tools.
Classroom
Memphis is located along the New Madrid fault zone. The zone includes a series of faults beneath the continental crust in an area known as the Reelfoot Rift. This fault system extends some 150 miles in length from near Marked Tree, Arkansas, through northwest Tennessee, the boot heal of Missouri, extreme west Kentucky and to the southern part of Illinois.