[irised] Fwd: earthquake list

[Michael Hubenthal]

This response was also supposed to go to the IRISEd list and I forgot  
to add it.

---------------------------------
Michael Hubenthal
Education Specialist
IRIS Consortium
607-777-4612
www.IRIS.edu
hubenth at iris.edu




Begin forwarded message:

> From: Michael Hubenthal <Michael.Hubenthal at iris.edu>
> Date: October 2, 2008 12:17:14 PM EDT
> To: Kate Baker <kbaker at stxcountryday.com>, earthscience at list.nsta.org
> Cc: Michael Hubenthal <Michael.Hubenthal at iris.edu>, John Taber  
> <taber at iris.edu>, Tim Ahern <tim at iris.washington.edu>
> Subject: Re: earthquake list
>
> Hi Kate,
>
> I am pleased that you have been using the IRIS Seismic Monitor  
> (http://www.iris.edu/dms/seismon.htm) as a resource for your  
> classroom.  As you point out in your note, that tool is designed to  
> display seismicity for events magnitude 4 and larger for the  
> purposes of highlighting patterns of global seismicity and the  
> frequency of earthquake occurrence.
>
> There are a number of other ways to mine the IRIS Data Management  
> Center for event data with in a set of parameters you define.  The  
> one I would highly recommend to you is a map driven tool called the  
> IRIS Earthquake Browser or IEB.  You can find a link to it here  
> http://www.iris.edu/data/event/  What is nice about this tool is  
> that you can define a region of interest by defining a box on the  
> map and then use the controls on the right to set limits on  
> Magnitude, Depth and Time range (NOTE: there is also a drop down  
> that limits the number of events displayed.  As a default this is  
> set to 200 to keep the data volume from becoming too great at the  
> start).  Once you have the data set displayed that is of interest  
> to you, click the word "table" at the top and the data will be  
> displayed in an table on a web page (I would like to see an xls  
> option added as well).  This should fit your needs very nicely and  
> is extremely easy to use... even for your students!
>
> NOTE: As a caveat to the type of data you noted you wanted to use  
> with students (<M 2.0), you will need to be careful about the  
> magnitudes you use in your studies with students.  The locating of  
> small events is limited by the density of stations nearby to record  
> the events, e.g. a M 2.0 release a relatively small amount of  
> energy that can attenuate before it travels far enough to be  
> detected by an instrument. Thus, if you  create a global map of  
> events in the IEB for events M 2.0 or smaller, you would get a map  
> of where there are dense arrays of stations on Earth, rather then  
> where there are actually large numbers of small events.  (You  
> should definitely try this with your students to see if they think  
> the distribution they see makes sense).  Thus, for a global study  
> you should probably limit the magnitudes to 4 or 4.5 or greater.    
> Conversely if you limit your study to an area like Southern CA or  
> Japan, you could extend the bottom threshold much further.  I hope  
> this makes sense, but if not, please feel free to email me with  
> questions.
>
> Best Wishes,
> Michael
>
> ---------------------------------
> Michael Hubenthal
> Education Specialist
> IRIS Consortium
> 607-777-4612
> www.IRIS.edu
> hubenth at iris.edu
>
>
>
>
> On Oct 2, 2008, at 10:29 AM, Kate Baker wrote:
>
>> [NSTA Earth Science]
>> I want to have my students look at earthquake data for the past
>> year. I'm using the list at
>> http://www.iris.washington.edu/seismon/last30days.phtml
>>
>> but i wondered if anyone knew where the data might be for the
>> last year. I'd also love to see a list of earthquakes that show
>> even small ones, less than 2.
>>
>> I'm having them look at the data in Fathom to see if there is a
>> relationship between plate boundary and depth and magnitude.
>> Also, the distribution of magnitude.
>>
>> Thank you!
>>
>> Kate Baker
>> St. Croix Country Day
>>
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>