Geology Department

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WWU faculty, alums collaborate on new display at the Museum of Northwest Art 2024-01-17
Honors College director Scott Linneman to retire in August 2024-01-16
The excitement of 70,000 Swifties can shake the Earth

The well-situated seismometer first came to public attention in January 2011, when it recorded the response of fans of the Seattle Seahawks, an American football team, to a magnificent touchdown by Marshawn Lynch, a running back known as “Beast Mode”. The “Beast Quake” went down in local…

2023-12-14
13 reasons for Taylor Swift to celebrate her birthday

Seattle seismologist found the crowd's dancing mixed with the booming speakers at Lumen Field caused seismic activity on par with a 2.3 magnitude earthquake. Jackie…

2023-12-14
The Scientist Who Decodes the Songs of Undersea Volcanoes

We often think of volcanoes as skyscraping marvels, but these portals to the geologic underworld also reside underwater. Unfortunately, submarine volcanoes are trickier to study than their terrestrial siblings. But you would be hard-pressed to find anyone more enchanted by them — and more…

2023-11-16
Washington's Volcanoes Are Experiencing Seismic Tremors from an Unlikely Source: Glaciers

Most people think of seismic activity as the result of movement along faults or of violent volcanic eruptions. But seismic events can have other causes, including floods and even large…

2023-10-26
Buried Sea Discovery Could Explain Slow-Motion Earthquakes

Beneath the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of New Zealand, lies a sea's worth of water, locked within the Earth's crust. Researchers believe that this sunken reservoir may play an important role in dampening the strength of earthquakes in the Western Pacific.

We tend to think of…

2023-10-10
Earthquake research center preps for ‘The Big One’

Major earthquakes in the Pacific Northwest are fairly uncommon, yet a significant threat looms: “The Big One” is an anticipated earthquake of magnitude 8 or higher.

And it could happen any day.

This projected earthquake — which would occur along the Cascadia Subduction Zone…

2023-09-25
Earthquake research center to prep PNW for impending disaster

Major earthquakes in the Pacific Northwest are fairly uncommon, yet a significant threat looms: “The Big One” is an anticipated earthquake of magnitude 8 or higher.  

And it could happen any day.  

This projected earthquake — which would occur along the Cascadia Subduction Zone…

2023-09-15
Western Washington University partnering in new $15M NSF-funded earthquake research center 2023-09-08
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