An Example of the data output for an earthquake picked up by the Northwesern University Department Earth and Planetary Sciencs seismometer. The initial peak is the arrival of the p-wave, which is the fastest wave from an earthquake, traveling at X km/s. The second peak is the arrival of the s-wave, which travels slightly slower at Y km/s. The largest peaks are a result of the Rayleigh waves, which travel along the surface rather than through the Earth, and therefore take longer to reach the seismometer and provide a larger ground motion.

A map showing worldwide distances from Northwestern University in Kilometers. With this map, It is easy to determine a rough estimate of the distance an earthquake occured from our seismometer given the latitude and longitude of the earthquake.

A map showing the distances at which the ground motion from certain magnitude earthquakes are visible on the Northwestern University Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences seismometer. Each ring represents a given magnitude where any earthquake occuring within the area of the ring provides enough ground motion to be seen above the noise on our seismometer. In seismology, noise is the amount of natural ground motion which can have many sources, including nearby vehicular traffic, wind, thunderstorms, and wave activity. The difference in color of the rings is for differences in noise. The red rings represent earthquakes which are visible even when large amounts of noise are present, while the black rings represent earthquakes which are visible when normal noise conditions are present.

An interactive map showing earthquakes picked up by the NUEAPS seismometer along with information from each.

Website design and Programming done by Clayton Brengman

Information provided by Clayton Brengman, Ben Heath, Karen Tekverk, and Suzan Van der Lee