Events

See the exciting field trips, workshops and events that took place at the 2019 SSA Annual Meeting.

Opening Keynote: “InSight: Opening a New World for Seismology”

Tuesday, 23 April, 5–5:30 p.m.

William B. Banerdt, InSight Principal Investigator and Principal Research Scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, delivered the opening keynote on the NASA InSight mission and its seismic analysis of Mars.

Watch the Opening Keynote

Public Policy Luncheon: “Seismic Retrofit of Unreinforced Masonry Buildings”

Thursday, 25 April, noon–1:30 p.m.

Barb Graff, director of the Seattle Office of Emergency Management, gave attendees an in depth look at how the city is trying to make infrastructure – particularly unreinforced masonry buildings – safer in the event of seismic events.

Watch the Public Policy Address

Joyner Lecture: “Simulating Realistic Earthquake Ground Motions”

Thursday, 25 April, lecture at 5:30–6:30 p.m.

This year’s Joyner Lecture featured 2019 recipient Robert Graves, who lectured on simulating realistic earthquake ground motions.

Watch the Joyner Lecture

Town Hall: The Why, How, Where and What of Earthquake Early Warning

Tuesday, 23 April, 6-7:30 p.m.

Screen capture from ShakeAlert demo (source: Pacific Northwest Seismic Network)

SSA invited members of the public to a town hall meeting on earthquake early warning systems in the Pacific Northwest. A panel of EEW experts were on hand to explain how they function, how they can prevent damage and injury and when they plan on being implemented throughout the region.

Speakers: 

  • Sandi Doughton, Seattle Times science reporter and author of Full-Rip 9.0: The Next Big Earthquake in the Pacific Northwest.
  • Scott Miles, an expert in disaster risk reduction in the Department of Human Centered Design and Engineering at the University of Washington.
  • Michele Campbell, ShakeAlert program manager at RH2 Engineering.
  • Harold Tobin, director of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network (PNSN) at the University of Washington.
  • Doug Toomey, co-director of the PNSN at the University of Oregon.

Women in Seismology Reception

Thursday, 25 April, 7:30–9:00 p.m.

Gail Atkinson, Professor of Geophysics at Western University, delivered the opening remarks at this popular event for women in seismology to connect, talk about their experiences and network.

Mentoring Breakfast for Early-Career and Student Attendees

Thursday, 25 April, 7:00–8:15 a.m.

Student and early-career members got together with professional seismologists to ask questions, discuss their research and network in this social breakfast.

Field Trips

The 2019 SSA Annual Meeting offered three exciting field trips.

Cascadia Earthquakes by Canoe

Trees killed by post-earthquake tides of the Copalis River estuary (photo: Stephen Vaughan)

Saturday, 27 April 2019
8:00 a.m.–10:00 p.m.

Hardy participants viewed iconic clues to great earthquakes on the Cascadia subduction thrust. The clues tell of recurrent subsidence and associated tsunamis in the past 2,000 years. Highlights include one of the estuarine ghost forests that identifies Cascadia as the likely source of a Pacific Ocean tsunami in January 1700, and which provides tree-ring evidence for an unusually long recurrence interval before then.

Trip leader: Brian Atwater (scientist emeritus, U.S. Geological Survey)

Earthquake Geology of Seattle

Seattle skyline from Jose P. Rizal Park

Saturday, 27 April 2019
8:30 a.m.–6:30 p.m.

This trip explored the geomorphology and stratigraphy of Seattle that record the history of crustal faulting and determine site response to earthquakes on all sources. Destinations included the South Beach of Discovery Park, scenic Jose Rizal Park, historic Alki Point, Terminal 107 Park and the Diagonal Avenue South Public Shoreline.

Trip Leaders: Ralph Haugerud (U.S. Geological Survey), Elizabeth Barnett (Shannon & Wilson, Inc.), Bill Laprade (Shannon & Wilson, Inc.) and Elizabeth Davis (University of Washington).

Facilities Tour of University of Washington

University of Washington Drumheller Fountain
(photo: Martin Kraft, MK03243 University of Washington Drumheller Fountain, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Saturday, 27 April 2019
7:00–11:00 a.m.

A tour of the University of Washington campus and its seismic research facilities, including the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network (PNSN), the Rapid Response Research Facility and UW Oceanography’s newest research vessel, the Rachel Carson.

Trip Leader: Ian Stone (University of Washington)

Workshops

The 2019 SSA Annual Meeting features five hands-on workshops on Tuesday, 23 April, made possible with support from the Kanamori Fund. All workshops start at 1 p.m. Pacific.

Sign up for any of the workshops when you register for the Annual Meeting.

Achieve Your Career Goals

Tuesday, 23 April 2019, 1:00–4:00 p.m.

This three-hour workshop focused on strategies and tactics to understand what you can, could and should be doing for your career. Topics include how to conduct a job search in academia, consulting or government agencies; the pros and cons of working in each sector; how potential employers find job seekers and other career-related questions.

Instructor: Alaina Levine, Quantum Success Solutions

Developing and Visualizing Community Seismic Velocity Models

Tuesday, 23 April 2019, 1:00 p.m.–4:30 p.m.

This workshop discussed the challenges and best practices for developing and maintaining community velocity models, as well as explore software and tools for visualizing 3-D models.

Instructors: Erin Wirth, U.S. Geological Survey; Philip Maechling, Southern California Earthquake Center; Manoch Bahavar, Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology

Getting Published – Writing a Good Scientific Paper

Tuesday, 23 April 2019, 1:00–4:00 p.m.

Learn all the nuts-and-bolts of a good scientific paper.

Instructors: Roland Burgmann, University of California, Berkeley; John Ebel, Boston College; Brent Grocholski, Science

Machine Learning for Seismology

Tuesday, 23 April 2019, 12:30–4:30 p.m.

The workshop covered introductory machine learning topics such as regression, classification, clustering, data cleaning, feature engineering and automatic feature extraction with deep learning. Attendees will then learn about the practical issues that are encountered when applying these methods to waveform and seismicity data.

The code used during the workshop is available to install and interact with.

Instructors: Karianne Bergen, Harvard; Qingkai Kong, University of California, Berkeley; Zefeng Li, Caltech; Youzuo Lin, Los Alamos National Laboratory; Maruti Kumar Mudunuru, Los Alamos National Laboratory; Daniel Trugman, Los Alamos National Laboratory

Measuring Fault Parameters and Slip from Geodetic Imaging Data using GeoGateway Online Tools

Tuesday, 23 April 2019, 1:00–4:30 p.m.

This workshop provided an overview of geodetic imaging and a hands-on experience working with the tools available through GeoGateway.

Instructors: Andrea Donnellan, Jet Propulsion Laboratory; Lisa Grant Ludwig, University of California, Irvine; John Rundle, University of California, Davis

Special Interest Groups

The 2019 SSA Annual Meeting offered three special interest group meetings.

Canadian Cordillera Array (CCArray)

Thursday, 25 April, 8–9:30 p.m.

This brief meeting provided an update on the Canadian Cordillera Array (CCArray).

Conveners: David Eaton (University of Calgary), Roy Hyndman (University of Victoria), Pascal Audet (University of Ottawa)

Offshore Facilities for Solid Earth Geoscience

Wednesday, 24 April, 7:30–9 p.m.

This brief meeting focused on the current state and future evolution of offshore facilities available for Solid Earth geoscience research.

Conveners: Emily Roland (University of Washington), Anne Trehu (Oregon State University), Jackie Caplan-Auerbach (Western Washington University)

Seismic Instruments for the Coming Decade

Friday, 26 April, Noon–1:15 p.m.

This group explored recently developed seismic instrumentation technologies and discussed their observed (or projected) performance and usability.

Convener: Bob Woodward (IRIS)