Issues

THE DEATH OF PEER REVIEW?

It's morning and I sit down at my workstation to check email. There are three messages from authors in Europe, Japan and the west coast asking what has happened to their manuscripts. They sent them in X (3, 6, 8) months ago and haven't heard a thing about their editorial fate. I go to my department mailbox and find an equal number of faxes from authors elsewhere in the world asking the same questions. Dutifully, I check the files of the BSSA to find out which associate editor is handling the paper and forward the messages accordingly. Sometimes I shock myself by finding out that the paper in question is one that I am handling. I find one review is in the me but we are waiting for the second.

Later, a new paper arrives in the mail. I decide to handle it myself. Choosing...

For residents of Northridge and other towns lining the San Andreas fault from Mexico to Mendocino, finding words to express their disapproval of recent earth-shaking events might not come easily. It might help such as these to go directly to Will Shakespeare.

We don't know whether the Bard ever experienced an earthquake himself. Still, he had no problem describing one when he wanted to punch up a scene. For instance, in Pericles, Prince of Tyre (Act III, Scene 2), a gentleman from Ephesus offers this vivid report: “... Our lodgings, standing bleak upon the sea, shook as the earth did quake; the very principals did seem to rend, and all to topple. Pure surprise and fear,” he concludes, “made me to quit the house.”

Since no major earthquakes were recorded in Europe during Elizabethan times, how cometh it that The Bard's characters could describe seismic events so graphically?

USGS EXTERNAL GRANTS PROGRAM IN JEOPARDY

In late June the subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee that oversees the Department of the Interior met—with serious consequences for university research in seismology.

The committee voted to reduce funding to the U.S. Geological Survey NERHP program by 8.7 million. The decision included language that protected everything but funding for the external grants program, which provides funding to university researchers. This action would reduce funding to USGS's NEHRP program by 15% and would completely eliminate funding to the external grants program.

The Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior and Related Agencies was expected to take up USGS appropriations at the end of July. If you have views on this matter you may wish to contact your Senators.

SSA members who volunteered for SSA's Government Affairs Action Initiative received a notification of the action and information on the Senate Committees from Terry Wallace, Chair of...

The 90th annual meeting of the SSA was hosted by the Department of Geological Science at the University of Texas at El Paso. Diane Doser served as the meeting chairperson, and the Technical Program Committee consisted of Richard Aster (New Mexico Tech), Susan Beck (University of Arizona), Hans Hartse (Los Alamos National Laboratory), Tom Hearn (New Mexico State University), Leigh House (Los Alamos National Laboratory), G. Randy Keller (University of Texas at El Paso), Kate Miller (University of Texas at El Paso), and Terry Wallace (University of Arizona). Compared to other recent meetings, this year's attendance was somewhat smaller (about 240 registrants and 150 abstracts submitted) than previous meetings in Pasadena or Santa Fe when the IRIS workshop was held in conjunction with the SSA annual meeting. This year's entire meeting was comfortably accommodated within the student union building at the University of Texas at El Paso campus. Posters, coffee...

Foreword

In previous columns under this heading I have covered some fundamental attributes of the Internet and how to use it for obtaining information of interest to seismologists. In this issue we leave the Internet for a while to take a look at a new computer program I have found quite exciting. Jonathan Lees of Yale University has been developing a GIS type of interactive display program for geological and geophysical data, which seems to fall into a niche between conventional 2-D commercial GIS programs and expensive, general purpose, 3-D display and rendering systems. This program, called “Xmap8,” is designed with a seismologist's needs in mind. Similar to the mapping program GMT or the waveform display program SAC, Xmap8 is being actively distributed to the seismological community and feedback from users has been incorporated into it. While it is far from a commercial “shrink-wrapped” product and still has some rough...

Preliminary Reconnaissance Report of the 1995 Hyogoken-Nanbu Earthquake—English Edition, by the Architectural Institute of Japan (AIJ)

On January 17, 1995, the Hanshin-Awaji earthquake wreaked havoc throughout the Kobe area, destroying or damaging a large percentage of the built infrastructure. Over 5,300 persons were killed by this earthquake and more than 26,000 were injured. More than 107,000 buildings and homes were destroyed or damaged beyond repair, rendering more than 300,000 people homeless. According to the latest estimates at the time of writing, the direct cost of damage is estimated to be at least fifteen trillion yen. Indirect costs will likely be even far greater. These figures could make the Great Hanshin earthquake the most costly natural disaster in recorded history.

Immediately following this earthquake, the Architecture Institute of Japan (AIJ) quickly assembled and coordinated a large reconnaissance team of 110 engineers and architect, to comprehensively survey all communities reported to have...

TVA SEISMIC NETWORK SHUTS DOWN

Eastern Tennessee contains a 300 km long, concentrated zone of seismicity that has been recognized through continuous network operation by TVA and the University of Memphis. The problem faced by TVA is that its critical facilities are located within the eastern Tennessee seismic zone. The maximum magnitude potential of the zone is unknown, and the seismic hazard posed by future shocks in the area is not quantified accurately.

The earthquake data set of almost 20 years is just becoming adequate to investigate the geological causes of the seismicity in the region and evaluate the seismic hazard in this seismically active area. Unfortunately, TVA shut down its network at the end of March. This shut down not only ended the operation the TVA stations themselves, it also severed communication links between the University of Memphis and their stations operating in eastern Tennessee. At present, no station...

AUGUST, 1995

August 5–12 The International Association for the Physical Sciences of the Oceans: XXI General Assembly

Honolulu, HI. (D.S. Luther, Dept. of Oceanography, MSB 307, School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1000 Pope Road, Honolulu, HI 96822. Phone 808-956-5875, fax 808-956-9165, e-mail [email protected])

August 10–12 Fourth U.S. Conference on Lifeline Earthquake Engineering

San Francisco. (Jodi Brill, ASCE. Fax 212-705-7975.)

SEPTEMBER, 1995

September 13–15 Deformation-enhanced Melt Segregation and Metamorphic Fluid Transport

Edinburgh Scotland. Sponsored by Mineralogical Society, Geological Society of London. (M. Holness, Dept. Geology and Geophysics, University of Edinburgh, West Mains Road, Edinburgh E119 3JW Scotland. Phone 031-650-8544, fax 031-668-3184. e-mail [email protected])

OCTOBER, 1995

October 1–5 American Institute of Professional Geologists 1995 Annual Meeting—Prosperity and Professional Geology

Denver, CO. (Conference Associates, 1776 Lincoln Street, Suite 620, Denver, CO 80203. Phone 303-863-9506; Fax 303-863-9507.)

October 12–13 Seismological Society of America, Eastern Section Annual...