Laptop Computers Detect and Monitor Earthquakes

Pickens writes "Live Science reports that 1,000 people from 61 countries have signed up with the Quake-Catcher Network to take advantage of built-in accelerometers in newer laptops that transmit data about earthquakes to researchers at UC Irvine and Stanford University. 'It's providing additional data that can be fed into the seismic networks,' says Elizabeth Cochran, a UC Irvine geoscientist. 'It also allows us to record earthquakes at a scale that we haven't been able to before because of the cost.' Cochran came up with the idea for the Quake-Catcher Network when she learned that most new laptops come equipped with accelerometers designed to switch off the hard drive if the laptop is dropped. 'I figured that we could easily tap into this data and use it to record earthquakes.' While traditional seismic monitors can detect earthquakes of magnitude 1.0 or less, the lowest magnitude the Quake-Catcher Network can detect is about 4.0, a moderate quake much like the one that hit LA on March 16. But what the network lacks in sensitivity, it makes up for in price as traditional seismic sensors cost $5,000 to $10,000 apiece. 'Ideally we would have seismometers in every building, or at least on every block. And in tall buildings, we'd have multiple sensors [on different floors],' says Cochran. 'That way, we would be able to actually get much higher detail images of how the ground shakes during an earthquake.'"

Comments

Flash-Group Earthquakes are fun!

[uncledrax]

I can't wait for Facebook group 'laptop drops' to simulate earth quakes.. the winner being hte person that can get the highest on the Richter scale w/o braking their laptops..

Re:Take this!

[FooAtWFU]

In all seriousness, they use the laptops to provide supplementary data to model the shaking of the ground and the buildings, not as primary earthquake detectors. People deliberately shaking their laptops are their least concerns. (Normal shaking, like from typing, is more important.)

Nah. Mobile phones

[Colin Smith]

Many mobiles have accelerometers these days in addition to gps. So you can get the gps positions of the wave as well as the gps timestamp and the accelerometer values.

They are even connected to a network. The tricorder in startrek... Mobile phone...