Other Projects and Activities

October 20, 1999
"Modeling Fracture Processes in the Earth’s Crust" by Alexander Bykovtsev.

February 7, 2000
"Using Precariously Balanced Rocks as Seismometers for Estimating the Strength of Shaking from Prehistoric Earthquakes" by Jim Brune.

March 22, 2000
"New Developments in Evaluating Strong Shaking" by Jim Brune

Fourteen graduate students are involved in research administered through ICS. These students are involved in field research both locally and internationally. Many have presented their research with talks or posters at professional meetings: e.g., American Geophysical Union, Geological Society of America, Seismological Society of America, annual Southern California Earthquake Center. In addition to the abstracts presented, ICS graduate students are also involved as co-authors on articles in referred journals.

Rob Meyer spent three months last winter in the Antarctic working on using apatite fission-track and paleomagnetic methods to determine the location of range-bounding faults in the southern and central Ford Ranges of Marie Byrd Land.

Kurt Knipmeyer is working the behavior and properties of sheared concentrated suspensions of hard-sphere particles in a Newtonian fluid. The flow properties of systems near the concentration at which viscosity diverges will be investigated with a specific focus on the phenomenon of jamming.

Anthony Foglia is working on a project in which he will use a new "rate-and-state" theory of plastic deformation to study seismic wave propagation through compacted soils. This new theory has been developed over the last several years by Langer and coworkers for the study of deformation and fracture in amorphous solids.

David Root is working with Brad Hacker on the "Exhumation of ultrahigh-pressure rocks in the Scandinavian Caledonides" and "Phase transformations and their effects on the thermal, petrological, and seismological structure of subducting oceanic lithosphere."

SCEC sponsored summer internships for two undergraduates: Marie C. Ammerman and Tracy Pattelena under the mentorship of Drs. Archuleta and Olsen, respectively. Each produced reports and presented their results at the SCEC annual meeting. Marie Ammerman’s project entitled; "Inconclusive Evidence for Fault Zone Trapped Waves on the Bullion Fault" included analyzing data from aftershocks recorded by stations in the Bullion Wash Array. Tracy Pattelena studied the "Refinement of Near-Surface P and S Wave Velocities in the SCEC 3-D Velocity Model Using 3-D Wave form Modeling". Tracy Pattelena’s research focused on the ground motion in a portion of the San Fernando Valley (SFV) where control on the near-surface S wave velocity, a critical parameter for accurate prediction of strong ground motion, is mostly indirect and in many areas not well constrained.

This year undergraduates had the unique opportunity of participating in both Active and Passive Stages of LARSE II experiment, which took place in September, and October of 1999. The occurrence of the October of 1999 Hector Mines Bullion Wash Earthquake provided hands on experience in field deployment after an actual earthquake. One example was the challenge of gaining access to earthquake sites, setting up and maintaining the site according to the guidelines of the site owners without the benefit of months or years or preparation.

Nicholson was interviewed by television and newspaper reporters regarding the seventy-fifth anniversary of the 1925 Santa Barbara earthquake. Archuleta has also given many interviews this year to the press about earthquake activity around the world. He also submitted an editorial in the Santa Barbara Newpress on January, 23,2000 titled "Early detection theory unreliable for quake warning" regarding the use of animals for the prediction of earthquakes.

Senior Elizabeth Cochran won the National Science Foundation fellowship to do graduate work at UCLA. "She is one of only two students at UCSB and 850 students nationwide to pick up the fellowship."* This a substantial achievement and exemplary of all her work with the Southern California Earthquake Center’s Portable Broad Band Instruments Center located at the Institute for Crustal Studies and the outreach activities she has participated in.
*Santa Barbara Newpress May 5, 2000.

May 15, 2000
Marc Kamerling did an outreach presentation to Ms. Dunselman's third grade class at Peabody Charter School. The presentation took about an hour. It explained about faults, what earthquakes are, earthquake waves and seismometers. He tried a new demonstration using gelatin and brownies to show how different materials respond to seismic waves. He made a pan of gelatin and one of brownies and clipped them together with strong large paperclips. He then stuck large plastic "toothpicks" standing up in the gelatin and brownies. When he tapped on the brownie dish the waves traveled through the brownies with no effect to the toothpicks, but the gelatin of course jiggled all over. This was a big hit and while the students ate this experiment, he prepared the seismometer for the "stomp" recordings.

May 12, 2000
Aaron Martin, Elizabeth Cochran and Carrie Glavich did a presentation to second through sixth graders from various Goleta and Santa Barbara Schools from the Goleta Boys & Girls Club After School Program located on the UCSB campus.

November 12-13, 1999
Olsen gave several general education talks during UCSB Parent’s weekend: "Earthquakes in Southern California."

November 13, 1999
Archuleta gave a general education talk during UCSB Parent’s weekend: "Earthquakes in Southern California."

April 22, 2000
Carrie Glavich, Aaron Martin, Karen Powers, Giulia Brofferio, Rob Meyer, Elizabeth Cochran, Fabia Terra and Tim Tierney participated in the Santa Barbara Earth Day festival.

May, 2000
For Staff Celebration Week we provided tours of the Institute, a demonstration of various instruments used by researchers and a worldwide web tour. The presentations lasted one hour and were conducted by Aaron Martin, Craig Nicholson, Elizabeth Cochran and Carrie Glavich