{"id":37274,"date":"2014-06-12T10:34:47","date_gmt":"2014-06-12T15:34:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=37274"},"modified":"2014-06-12T10:35:50","modified_gmt":"2014-06-12T15:35:50","slug":"meet-the-quake-detective-studying-the-north-texas-tremors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2014\/06\/12\/meet-the-quake-detective-studying-the-north-texas-tremors\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the Quake Detective Studying the North Texas Tremors"},"content":{"rendered":"

From KERA News:<\/a><\/em><\/h4>\n
\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Doualy Xaykaothao KERA News<\/p>\n

Heather DeShon leads an SMU research team looking into what’s causing the earthquakes in and around Azle and Reno, which are northwest of Fort Worth.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Heather DeShon<\/a>\u00a0is a geophysicist at SMU. She\u2019s studied earthquake sequences in Indonesia, Nicaragua, but also in North Texas — in\u00a0Cleburne<\/a>. Now she leads a team collecting data in towns\u00a0northwest of Fort Worth.<\/p>\n

After a cluster of small earthquakes hit in November, DeShon and\u00a0SMU scientists<\/a>placed seismic stations in Parker, Wise and Tarrant counties.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe seismic stations measure the acceleration of the ground,\u201d DeShon said. \u201cWhen an earthquake happens, it moves the ground. What this allows us to do is to record the seismic waves, and that allows us to do a better job to locate the earthquakes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The\u00a0U.S. Geological Survey<\/a>\u00a0sent DeShon\u2019s team small blue boxes called NetQuake stations.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe put them in secure locations with wireless access,\u201d DeShon said. \u201cAnd every hour, the station pings the USGS, and sends the last hours worth of data. You can view that online, in near real time, and the data will eventually be archived for anyone to look at.\u201d<\/p>\n

These instruments are recording accelerations or movements underground, 24\/7.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce we know where the earthquakes are occurring, we can figure out the mechanism of the earthquake,\u201d DeShon said. \u201cIf they\u2019re associated with a fault, how large is that fault? How big an earthquake might we expect in the future?\u201d<\/p>\n

The information being collected could help determine seismic hazards.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the Dallas-Fort Worth area in particular, if it appears that something is changing, and I\u2019m not saying it is, but if that ends up being the conclusions, then we need to pass that data and those conclusions on to other public agencies,” DeShon said.<\/p>\n

The results of this SMU research could give emergency managers, building engineers and local officials a better picture of the risks. The goal is to save lives, she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like working on something that I feel like potentially makes a difference, potentially helps people,” she said. “Because if we do, the day to day activities of locating the earthquakes might sound dry, but the consequences of that are not.\u201d<\/p>\n

This the second of several stories in a series called “What’s Behind the North Texas Quakes?”<\/em><\/p>\n

Earthquake public forum to be held June 18 in Azle<\/strong><\/p>\n

What\u2019s behind the earthquakes in North Texas?\u00a0KERA<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0StateImpact Texas<\/a>\u00a0will host a free public event to explore the issues at 7 p.m. \u00a0June 18 at the Azle High School Auditorium.\u00a0Learn more about the forum here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From KERA News: Doualy Xaykaothao KERA News Heather DeShon leads an SMU research team looking into what’s causing the earthquakes in and around Azle and Reno, which are northwest of Fort Worth. Heather DeShon\u00a0is a geophysicist at SMU. She\u2019s studied earthquake sequences in Indonesia, Nicaragua, but also in North Texas — in\u00a0Cleburne. Now she leads […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[59],"tags":[211,104,50],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37274"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37274"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37274\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37287,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37274\/revisions\/37287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}