Re: [Dews] USGS: ShakeAlert

[Fred Baker <fred@cisco.com>]

I'm very very confused. The discussion on the bufferbloat list was about how to get a message from a system containing a cheap accelerometer - a CPE Router or a set-top box - to someone that wanted to receive them from zillions of sources. It seems to be morphing into a discussion of the Common Alerting Protocol (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Alerting_Protocol) or something like it to distribute alerts.

Please pick one. If it's the CAP discussion, there is a lot of work going on and we don't need another place to comment on it; drop me off.

On May 26, 2012, at 8:25 PM, Hal Murray wrote:

> 
> In Apr, 2012, the monthly public lecture at the USGS Menlo Park campus 
> described their work in this area:
> 
> ShakeAlert!
> --building an earthquake early warning system for California
> by Doug Given, USGS Earthquake Early Warning Coordinator
>   * Millions of Japanese citizens received advance warning of the 2011
> magnitude 9.0 Tohoku earthquake -- can such a system be built for use in
> California?
>   * University researchers and government agencies are working together to
> create an Earthquake Early Warning system in California to reduce earthquake
> losses
>   * April is Earthquake Awareness Month in California -- how could you and
> your family best prepare for severe ground shaking using 30 seconds of
> advance warning?
> 
> The video of the talk is online.  It's an hour and a half.
> http://online.wr.usgs.gov/calendar/2012/apr12.html
> 
> It's pretty good.  I think anybody interested in this topic should watch it.
> If nothing else, it will give us a common reference.
> 
> 
> Numbers and such from my memory:
> 
> P waves travel at 3 miles/second.  S waves (the destructive ones) travel at 
> 2 miles/second.
> 
> It takes about 10 seconds to verify that a quake exists and estimate how
> big it is.
> 
> They think they can get a 20-30 second warning.  That's for a big enough
> quake, and far enough away but not too far.  If it isn't big, nobody cares.
> If it's too far away nobody cares.  If it's too close, you don't get enough
> warning time to be useful.  Quakes on the San Andreas Fault near Los Angeles
> are likely to fit.  (The USGS people doing the work are located in Pasadena.)
> 
> Half (or more) of the work is making contact with the people who want to
> know that a quake is coming.  BART wants to stop their trains.  (BART trains 
> can carry 1000 people.A serious wreck would overload the emergency response 
> system even without any other earthquake damage.)
> 
> He had lots of info from Japan.  They have a lot more/denser sensors than we 
> do.
> 
> The USGS is looking for $50-100 million over 5 years to install more sensors 
> and $5-10 million/year for operations.
> 
> --------
> 
> The Moore foundation gave $6 million to CalTech, Berkeley, and Univ of
> Washington for work in this area.
> http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article_pf.asp?ID=3041
> They are cooperating with the USGS.
> 
> 
> -- 
> These are my opinions.  I hate spam.
> 
> 
> 
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