SSA News and Announcements
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Index
- Opportunity to Participate in NGA East (19 Aug 2010)
- New BSSA Editor-in-Chief Selected (09 Jul 2010)
- Call for Nominations for the Bruce Bolt Medal (08 Jul 2010)
- Annual Geosciences Congressional Visits Days September 21 & 22, 2010 (25 Jun 2010)
- Italian Seismologists Indicted for Failing to Predict An Earthquake (17 Jun 2010)
- SSA Seeks Nominations for SRL Editor (26 Mar 2010)
- Suitable Systems Releases SeisMac 3.0 (19 Feb 2010)
- Change to BSSA Journal of Record (22 Jan 2010)
- House Holds Hearings on NEHRP Reauthorization (26 Jun 2009)
Opportunity to Participate in NGA East
19 Aug 2010
NGA East is a comprehensive multidisciplinary program to develop Next Generation Attenuation Relationships for the Central and Eastern United States. The Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center (PEER) has announced two new Requests for Proposals for the NGA East Project. PEER is looking for proposals on the following topics:
- The validation of existing earthquake rupture simulation models for the Central and Eastern US regions.
- The development of magnitude-area relationships applicable to the Central and Eastern US regions.
The deadline for both technical proposal submissions is September 8, 2010.
For a detailed description of each RFP, including submission instructions, please visit: http://peer.berkeley.edu/ngaeast/request_for_proposals.html
New BSSA Editor-in-Chief Selected
9 Jul 2010
The Seismological Society of America has named Diane I. Doser, professor of geosciences at University of Texas at El Paso, the new editor-in-chief of the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (BSSA), effective June 1, 2010.
Doser’s research interests include studies of historical pre-1964 and recent earthquakes in south-central, southeast and interior Alaska, and central to northern California. She also applies geophysical techniques to environmental and engineering problems including watershed studies and estimating the quality and quantity of saline and freshwater aquifers. Results of her earthquake studies have helped in producing the next generation of earthquake hazard maps for the Alaska region. Her shallow geophysical studies are helping to assess the structural and stratigraphic controls on groundwater resources of the El Paso area.
BSSA is the premier journal of advanced research in earthquake seismology and related disciplines. The bimonthly journal is composed of scientific papers on the various aspects of seismology, including investigation of specific earthquakes, theoretical and observational studies of seismic waves, inverse methods for determining the structure of the Earth or the dynamics of the earthquake source, seismometry, earthquake hazard and risk estimation, seismotectonics, and earthquake engineering. According to the Thomson Reuters' Sciencewatch, BSSA published more papers on earthquakes in 2009 than any other journal and ranked second in number of citations.
A member of BSSA’s editorial board since 1996, Doser will succeed Andrew Michael, a geophysicist with U.S. Geological Survey, who has served as editor-in-chief since 2004.
Call for Nominations for the Bruce Bolt Medal
8 Jul 2010
The Bruce Bolt Medal is awarded jointly by COSMOS, EERI, and SSA to recognize individuals worldwide whose accomplishments involve the promotion and use of strong-motion earthquake data and whose leadership in the transfer of scientific and engineering knowledge into practice or policy has led to improved seismic safety.
Members of EERI, SSA, and COSMOS are encouraged to submit nominations for this distinguished award. Nominations will be reviewed in confidence by a six-person Joint Nomination Panel formed by two representatives of each if the three sponsoring organizations. The nominee will be considered in confidence by each organization’s board for their approval and selection of the medalist.
The following criteria are used to select the recipient:
- Promotion of strong-motion instrumentation or advancing strong-motion data processing or data utilization;
- Technical contributions in seismic engineering or engineering seismology; and
- Leadership in the transfer of knowledge into practice or policy that has led to improved seismic safety.
The Joint Nomination Panel is charged with applying these criteria to select a nominee worthy of the high level of professional recognition represented by the sponsorship of the Bruce Bolt Medal by SSA, COSMOS, and EERI.
The nomination letter must address the ways in which the candidate meets all three of the criteria. This submittal should not be longer than two pages. A summary of the professional history of the candidate, and the current contact information for the candidate should also be supplied. Up to three supporting letters may be included in the nomination package.
The closing date for submitting nominations is August 31, 2010 (please note, this is 2 months earlier than last year's nomination deadline).
Nominations for the Bruce Bolt Medal should be sent to the Bolt Medal Nomination Panel, in care of William (Woody) Savage at wusavage [at] usgs [dot] gov. Questions regarding the Bolt Medal criteria or the nomination process for candidates may be directed to Woody at the above email address or 702-794-1361 (office number). While electronic submissions are preferred, in .pdf or .doc formats, hard copies may be sent to the following mail box or fax. If a hard copy is sent, the sender should notify Woody by phone or email.
Bolt Medal Nomination Panel
In care of William Savage
1930 Village Center Circle #3-292
Las Vegas, NV 89134
Fax 702-794-1350
Email wusavage [at] usgs [dot] gov
Annual Geosciences Congressional Visits Days September 21 & 22, 2010
25 Jun 2010
The American Geological Institute (AGI), in collaboration with SSA and many other geoscience societies, invites geoscientists to come to Washington DC for the third annual Geosciences Congressional Visits Day (GEO-CVD) on September 21-22, 2010.
Decision makers need to hear from geoscientists. Become a citizen geoscientist and join many of your colleagues for this two-day event uniting geoscience researchers, professionals, students, educators, engineers, and executives in Washington DC to raise visibility and support for the geosciences.
This two-day event brings geoscientists, engineers, researchers, educators, and executives to Washington D.C. to raise visibility and support for the geosciences. Become a citizen geoscientist and join many of your colleagues for a workshop at AGU headquarters followed by a day conducting visits with Members of Congress or congressional staff on Capitol Hill.
The visits will focus on the importance of geoscience research and development and geoscience education. Geoscientists will speak for these shared concerns with a unified message and can enhance the message by using examples from their professional work and experiences.
Geo-CVD will be coordinated by Washington DC staff from the AGI, the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, the American Geophysical Union, the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography, the Geological Society of America, the Seismological Society of America, and the Soils Science Society of America. For additional information or to sign up please visit www.agiweb.org/gap/events/geocvd/ or send email to govt@agiweb.org.
Italian Seismologists Indicted for Failing to Predict An Earthquake
17 Jun 2010
SSA is deeply concerned to learn that members of our society and their colleagues have been indicted by the Prosecutor’s Office in L’Aquila, Italy for failing to issue a short-term alarm prior to the tragic L’Aquila earthquake of 6 April 2009.
Read SSA's letter to the President of Italy [PDF; 430 KB].
Read the open letter to the President of Italy prepared by the Italian National Institute for Geophysics and Vulcanology (INGV) and signed by over 3900 geoscientists, engineers, professors, students and other interested parties.
Read Susan Hough's April 2009 Opinion in the New York Times.
Watch Steve Malone's IRIS/SSA Lecture: “Predicting Earthquakes and Volcanic Eruptions: What Can and Can't Now be Done?” at YouTube.
SSA Seeks Nominations for SRL Editor
26 Mar 2010
SSA invites nominations for a new Editor for the Seismological Research Letters (SRL). Luciana Astiz, who has edited the publication since 2007, has indicated a desire to step down. Under Luciana's leadership, SRL has remained one of the most interesting and useful journals in seismology. SRL has a popular and newsy outlook, and includes unique community features and very diverse material spanning all of the field.
The SRL Editor is at the exciting center of news, information, and SSA activities. In addition to a vision for the unique character of this journal, the SRL Editor must have broad interests, excellent communication skills, and the wide contacts within the international research community necessary to both shepherd articles and obtain solid reviews.
This is a volunteer position — it is not paid. However the position is fulfilling in many professional and personal ways.
Should you know of colleagues who are promising candidates for the position, or if you are interested yourself please contact the Search Committee at SRLsearch@seismosoc.org, which will be chaired by former SRL editor Sue Hough (USGS).
Suitable Systems Releases SeisMac 3.0
19 Feb 2010
Suitable Systems has released a new version of SeisMac, the free software tool that accesses your Macintosh laptop's Sudden Motion Sensor in order to display real-time, three-axis acceleration graphs. The initial version of SeisMac was described in the Electronic Seismologist column in the November/December 2006 issue of Seismological Research Letters (SRL 77:6).
Version 3.0 of SeisMac adds the ability to export your captured seismological data to CSV, SAC or SACA files. SAC and SACA are industry-standard file formats for seismic analysis programs. CSV files can be used to easily import your data into popular spreadsheet programs.
In addition, SeisMac 3.0 includes calibrations for every recent Macintosh laptop, and contains a number of other improvements and fixes.
SeisMac 3.0 was developed with support from the National Science Foundation (NSF) through the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS). Building on successful earlier versions of SeisMac, the latest release's enhancements make it an even more valuable tool for classroom demonstrations of seismic concepts and techniques.
For more information and/or to download SeisMac, visit http://www.suitable.com/tools/seismac.html.
Change to BSSA Journal of Record
22 Jan 2010
Beginning with the first issue of volume 100 (February 2010), the online edition of the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (BSSA) at http://bssa.geoscienceworld.org/ and http://www.bssaonline.org/ will be the definitive edition of the Bulletin and the journal of record. Starting with volume 100, issue 3, authors will have the option to save on color printing charges by publishing color figures online with grayscale versions in print. This means that some figures in the print edition will be degraded compared to the online edition. These figures will be identified by captions that end with the sentence, “The color version of this figure is available only in the electronic edition.” Information for authors on these options can be found on the Art Guidelines and Page Charges pages of the SSA website.
House Holds Hearings on NEHRP Reauthorization
26 Jun 2009
Hearings on the Reauthorization of the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program: R&D for Disaster Resilient Communities were held on June 11, 2009 by the the US House of Representatives Committee of Science and Technology, subcommittee on technology and Innovation. Testimony of the invited witnesses is available on the Committee's website at http://science.house.gov/publications/hearings_markups_details.aspx?NewsID=2483. SSA submitted a written comment for the record. It is posted at http://www.seismosoc.org/society/government/NEHRP_reauth_comment.php.