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<DIV class=article-banner-image><FONT size=6 face=Arial>Bleep bleep: an
earthquake is two minutes away</FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=image-caption><FONT face=Arial>Fred Furtado</FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=image-caption><FONT face=Arial>02/12/13</FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=image-caption><A
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<DIV class=right><FONT face=Arial>Countries that do not have or cannot afford
</FONT><A href="http://www.scidev.net/global/environment/disasters/"
target=_blank><FONT color=#1e648c face=Arial>earthquake</FONT></A><FONT
face=Arial> detection systems may soon have an alternative thanks to a new
technology being developed in the United States and discussed last week at the
6<SUP><FONT size=1>th</FONT></SUP> World Science Forum (WSF), in Rio de Janeiro,
</FONT><A href="http://www.scidev.net/america-latina/" target=_blank><FONT
color=#1e648c face=Arial>Brazil</FONT></A><FONT face=Arial>.<BR><BR></FONT><A
href="http://www.scidev.net/global/enterprise/design/" target=_blank><FONT
color=#1e648c face=Arial>Developers</FONT></A><FONT face=Arial> at the
University of Califonia, Berkely in the US have spent the last five years
developing a system that uses the accelerometer — a sensor that measures the
speed of the phone’s movement — and global positioning system (GPS) in </FONT><A
href="http://www.scidev.net/global/communication/icts/" target=_blank><FONT
color=#1e648c face=Arial>smartphones</FONT></A><FONT face=Arial> to detect
tremors.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=right><BR><FONT face=Arial>The phone sends data through an app to a
server. This processes the </FONT><A
href="http://www.scidev.net/global/enterprise/data/" target=_blank><FONT
color=#1e648c face=Arial>data</FONT></A><FONT face=Arial> and then alerts all
the other devices with the app on the intensity of the tremors and an expected
time of their arrival at the devices location.<BR><BR>“This system has enormous
potential. There are 1 billion smartphones on the planet and they are rapidly
growing in the developing countries that do not have high-quality detection
systems,” Richard Allen, one of the principal investigators behind the project,
explained to the audience at WSF.<BR><BR>According to Allen smartphones can
currently detect earthquakes of magnitude 5 at up to 10 kilometres from a
quake’s epicentre. With improvement in the quality of accelerometers, they will
be able to detect magnitude 3 quakes at 100 kilometres in the not too distant
future.<BR><BR>At the beginning of next year, the researchers plan on starting
field tests by releasing their free app, called MyShake, to a few thousand
people. “The idea is that the number of users will increase progressively,”
Allen told <EM>SciDev.Net</EM>.<BR><BR>“Another advantage is that users will not
just receive information, but will also send data back,” he added. This will
help researchers model earthquakes.<BR><BR>Virginia Murray is head of the
<U>Extreme Events and Health Protection</U> section of Public Health England,
part of the UK’s government’s Department of Health. For her, the
technology is a way of increasing people’s knowledge of earthquakes and
potentially saving lives and livelihoods.<BR><BR>She suggested that knowing the
strength of the earthquake and when it’s going to hit will give people a lead
time to find shelter. “It can lead people to make better decisions; it empowers
them and their
communities.” <BR></FONT></DIV></DIV></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>