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Centennial of 1906: UC Berkeley Events

The UC Berkeley 2006 Planning Group meets quarterly to discuss plans and coordinate activities. Current plans include:

Forces that Shape the Bay: The Lawrence Hall of Science exhibit opened on June 20-21, 2003. This exhibit will be a center piece of activities planned by LHS in 2005-2006.
1906 Digital Archive: The Bancroft Library is working the California Historical Society, the Huntington Library, Stanford Library, and California State Library to build a digital archive of 1906-related materials - photographs, manuscripts, books, and oral histories. All materials will be made available on the Web and plans call for this effort to be completed in early 2005 so that it will be a resource for other centennial projects. Philip Fradkin is serving as a consultant on the project.
100th Centennial Meeting: The Berkeley Seismological Laboratory will co-host the annual meeting of the Seismological Society of America (SSA), scheduled for 4/18/2006 - 4/21/2006, with the USGS. Discussions are currently underway between SSA, the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI), and the Office of Emergency Services to host a joint meeting in the Moscone Center of San Francisco. This will be an exciting opportunity to bring together seismologists, geologists, engineers, architects, planners, and emergency responders to discuss earthquake issues.
Lawson Lecture: The BSL has established an annual lecture series, focused on seismology and society. The inaugural lecture took place in April 2003 and was given by Dr. David Schwartz of the USGS. The 2005 Lawson Lecture is entitled The 2004 Giant Earthquake and Tsunami: Observations and Lessons Learned and will be given by Dr. Barbara Romanowicz, Director of the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory, on April 18th.
Casebook on the SAFER Project: Professors Mary Comerio and Stephen Tobriner of the Department of Architecture are moving forward with plans to produce a casebook on seismic retrofitting on the campus. Their spring 2003 class,"Case Studies in Seismic Design - Existing Buildings on the UC campus", will be repeated in the coming year. The topics range from the history of the campus Seismic Review Committee to the history of faults on the campus, from the people who did the retrofits to the people who blew the whistle.
Symposium on economic/policy aspects/impacts of the disaster: The Haas School of Business is discussing plans for a multi-disciplinary symposium, covering a broad range of business-related topics including: insurance and finance, macro economic effects, earthquake prediction and forecasting, disaster preparedness and relief, transportation and communications, housing markets, history, and risk management policy. The symposium is tentatively planned for spring 2006.
Republish Issue #1 of the UC Chronicle: The UC Chronicle is considering republishing issue #1, Alarums and Diversions: Disasters at Cal, with an updated section. Steve Finacom hopes to have it printed for spring 2006, with new articles finished in 2005. No funding has been identified yet for republication.
Campus Earthquake Training Exercise: The Office of Emergency Preparedness organizes regular drills and exercise of the campus Disaster Response Plan. Earthquakes were the centerpiece of exercises in 2003 and 2000, so 2006 is a natural opportunity for an earthquake drill. Campus training exercises are generally held in June.
Brown Gallery Exhibit: Many campus units are planning to contribute to a proposed exhibit in the Brown Gallery. This activity in the early planning stages, but 14 cases are available for display. This could be scheduled for January-April or April-June in 2006.
Campus Tours: Several different tours of the campus are being planned as part of the Centennial. Capital Projects is planning a tour of the SAFER projects, while another tour will highlight the campus as it was in 1906 including buildings and sites associated with earthquake relief. The BSL is planning a tour of the Hayward Fault on campus. It is anticipated that these tours will take place in April 2006 and will be coordinated with Cal Day.

For more information, please contact us!

www@seismo.berkeley.edu