After helping put in place a sophisticated measuring system in 2009, two professors in Baylor University’s geology department are well-positioned to use data taken from the Japanese earthquake to better understand the depths of the earth in Texas.

Baylor professor Jay Pulliam works in a research lab on campus, examining data from the recent quake in Japan.
Jerry Larson / Waco Tribune-Herald

Two stations in Lake Whitney and Abilene set up by the academics, Jay Pulliam and Vince Cronin, registered seismic activity when the 9.0-magnitude earthquake hit off the coast of Japan. The sites are part of an array of stations across the United States with sensors picking up data from quakes like the one that struck last week.

“Putting it all together tells us a lot about the structure of the deep earth” in the U.S., Pulliam said, emphasizing how little is known about the earth in parts of the country where quakes aren’t common.

“We’ve had very few stations in the southern U.S. and Texas, so we’re going to have a lot of surprises,” he said.

With the Sendai quake’s size, researchers in the U.S. have a tool to see how the earth in this country reacted and further the general understanding of what lies below.

“It’s a good subject for study, but at the same time I’m sorry for people impacted by it,” Pulliam said.

In addition to what scientists are learning about the structure of the earth, Cronin, a Baylor geologist, said structural engineers also will study how buildings held up to the strain of the Japan quake.

“The closest analog to the Japan situation is a subduction zone in our country under Oregon, Washington and British Columbia,” Cronin said. “That area’s also due for a fairly large earthquake, so the lessons learned from the Sendai earthquake are things that, if we’re smart, we’ll immediately apply in the Pacific Northwest.”

“Central America and Mexico also has a subduction zone,” he said, but “the people of Central America and Mexico are less able to enforce strict building codes.”

Cronin gave the Japanese high marks for the strength of their buildings, though he noted it appeared nuclear regulators in the country allowed a power plant to be built on a fault line without an adequate plan for a tsunami.

“But once you get a few miles in from the coast, there was little damage from the earthquake, which is a testament to how good their building codes are,” he said.

“Waco doesn’t have that kind of threat, but in places like the Pacific Northwest, or California, or Utah, they’re foolish if they don’t just go to school with an event like this.”

For more information about earthquakes, visit www.iris.edu.

mshapiro@wacotrib.com

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