EarthquakesNew app turns smartphones into sensors for an earthquake early-warning system
The MyShake app, still in test mode, uses smartphone accelerometers and locators to augment the data on incoming quakes issued by the 400 seismometers which are part of California’s ShakeAlert program.Registered phones act as additional earthquake sensors, as the app runs an algorithm which detects when the phone is still or shaking. Should several registered phones in the same area begin to shake at the same time, an earthquake alert is issued.
Roughly 150 registered test users in California can receive desktop alerts of a pending earthquake from the ShakeAlert program operated by the Seismological Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley. The system gave a 5-second warning to users twenty-five miles away from the recent magnitude 6.0 earthquake in Napa, California. It would take at least $54 million to make the technology available to all Californians, but a collaborative effort between ShakeAlert and Deutsche Telekom Innovation Laboratories may make the alerts available to the masses via a smartphone app.
ShakeAlert detects earthquakes by using the California Integrated Seismic Network of roughly 400 seismometers placed near major faults to identify primary waves (P-waves) as they move through the Earth at almost twice the speed of the earthquakes’ destructive S-waves, which shake the ground. TheNew York Times reports that the MyShake app, still in test mode, uses smartphone accelerometers and locators to augment the data on incoming quakes issued by the 400 seismometers. Registered phones would act as additional earthquake sensors as the app runs an algorithm which detects when the phone is still or shaking. Should several registered phones in the same area begin to shake at the same time, an earthquake alert will be issued.
“We like to think this is a big development in the next generation of the seismometer network,” said Richard Allen, director of the UC Berkeley Seismological Laboratory. “All we need is a telephone at the epicenter of the quake which detects it and sends the information (saying), ‘I felt a jolt, I am in this place’ to a server,” Allen told an audience at a presentation at the World Science Forum in Rio de Janeiro last year.
While both ShakeAlert and MyShake remain in test mode, there are several smartphone apps that send out alerts and information on earthquakes. Those apps, however, still rely on details of an ongoing earthquake from disaster and research agencies such as the American Red Cross and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The American Red Cross Earthquake app issues an alert based on data from the USGS. “What makes it special is it alerts in real time,” said Dom Tolli, vice president for product management at the Red Cross division of preparedness, health and safety services. The app also provides data and a map of magnitude 4.5 or higher earthquakes that have occurred around the world in the last thirty days.
The USGS is considering using the Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA), the program used by the National Weather Service to send out severe weather warnings, for earthquake alerts. Douglas Given, Earthquake Early Warning Coordinator for the USGS, is not sure the speed of WEA is quick enough for earthquake alerts. Sixty companies already rely on WEA to issue warnings, mostly for weather and terror threats, scenarios in which a few minutes of lag is considered acceptable. Telecommunications companies may need to upgrade their networks to allow earthquake alerts to reach users quickly. “Time is really important here,” Given said. “They (phone companies) don’t have a lot of incentive for speeding up their system until people start to demand this sort of service.”
