Seismology
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the rapid advances in the study of earthquakes in the last century and what those have revealed about the structure of our planet.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the study of earthquakes. A massive earthquake in 1755 devastated Lisbon, and this disaster helped inspire a new science of seismology which intensified after San Francisco in 1906 and advanced even further with the need to monitor nuclear tests around the world from 1945 onwards. While we now know so much more about what lies beneath the surface of the Earth, and how rocks move and crack, it remains impossible to predict when earthquakes will happen. Thanks to seismology, though, we have a clearer idea of where earthquakes will happen and how to make some of them less hazardous to lives and homes.
With
Rebecca Bell
Senior lecturer in Geology and Geophysics at Imperial College London
Zoe Mildon
Lecturer in Earth Sciences and Future Leaders Fellow at the University of Plymouth
And
James Hammond
Reader in Geophysics at Birkbeck, University of London
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Last on
LINKS AND FURTHER READING
James Hammond at Birkbeck, University of London
Rebecca Bell at Imperial College London
Zoe Mildon at the University of Plymouth
READING LIST
Deborah R. Coen, The Earthquake Observers: Disaster Science from Lisbon to Richter (University of Chicago Press, 2012)
C.M.R. Fowler, The Solid Earth: An Introduction to Global Geophysics (Cambridge University Press, 2004)
Susan Hough, The Great Quake Debate: The Crusader, the Skeptic, and the Rise of Modern Seismology (University of Washington Press, 2020)
William H.K. Lee and others (eds.), International Handbook of Earthquake & Engineering Seismology (Academic Press, 2002), especially the chapter ‘History of Seismology’ by D. C. Agnew
Stephen Marshak, Earth: Portrait of a Planet (W. W. Norton & Company, 2018)
RELATED LINKS
‘Did the Earth move for you? From slow slip to Great Earthquakes’: public lecture by Rebecca Bell – Geological Society, June 2019
‘Mars InSight: mission unveils surprising secrets of red planet’s interior’ by Anna Horleston and Jessica Irving – The Conversation, July 2021
‘Why it is so hard to predict where and when earthquakes will strike’ by Mark Allen – The Conversation, April 2015
‘The Earthquake That Brought Enlightenment’ by Laura Trethewey – Hakai Magazine, Sept 2020
‘The ‘pulse’ of a volcano can be used to help predict its next eruption’ by Rebecca Carey – The Conversation, May 2019
‘Using seismic waves to image Earth's internal structure’ by Barbara Romanowicz – Nature, Jan 2008
‘From light to waveform: how fiber-optic cables can be repurposed as seismic arrays’ by Verónica Rodríguez Tribaldos – EGU blogs, Sept 2020
‘Earthquake Conversations’ by Ross Stein - Scientific American, July 2005
A slow slip event
Big Glass Mic! – V&A
Seismic Sound Lab
Broadcasts
- Thu 10 Mar 2022 09:00BBC Radio 4
- Thu 10 Mar 2022 21:30BBC Radio 4
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