An Earthquake Warning System in Our Pockets?

While you are checking your email, scrolling through social-media feeds, or just going about your daily life with your trusty smartphone in your pocket, the sensors in that little computer could also be contributing to an earthquake early warning system. So says a new study led by researchers at Caltech and the United States Geological Survey (USGS). The study suggests that all of our phones and other personal electronic devices could function as a distributed network, detecting any ground movements caused by a large earthquake, and, ultimately, giving people crucial seconds to prepare for a temblor. "Crowd-sourced alerting means that the community will benefit by data generated by the community," said Sarah Minson (PhD '10), a USGS geophysicist and lead author of the study, which appears in the April 10 issue of the new journal Science Advances . Minson completed the work while a postdoctoral scholar at Caltech in the laboratory of Thomas Heaton, professor of engineering seismology. Earthquake early warning (EEW) systems detect the start of an earthquake and rapidly transmit warnings to people and automated systems before they experience shaking at their location. While much of the world's population is susceptible to damaging earthquakes, EEW systems are currently operating in only a few regions around the globe, including Japan and Mexico.