Map
of California & Nevada earthquakes
1960-1990
Just as the 1906 earthquake illustrated the need for updated seismic instrumentation, the negotiations for a nuclear test ban treaty in the late 1950s and early 1960s motivated the upgrade of US seismology programs.
As a result of funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a tunnel was driven into the Berkeley Hills (behind the Botanical Gardens) to establish a quiet recording vault. The Berkeley Byerly station became a site within the newly designed Worldwide Standard Seismographic Network instruments in 1959.
In addition to the upgraded campus facilities, the Seismographic Stations developed the first network of telemetered regional stations in 1961. Consisting of short-period Benioff seismographs (an example is on display in the BSL conference room on the 2nd floor) with continuous data transmission to UC Berkeley over phone lines, the data were recorded on processed film and paper helical strips (aka helicorders). In the mid-1980s, the faculty and staff of the Seismographic Stations deployed the first broadband seismometers in California at Columbia College, Lick Observatory, and the San Andreas Observatory in Hollister. Digital recording was introduced in 1986 at a few sites. In parallel, the Parkfield Prediction Experiment permitted the establishment of a dense network of borehole seismometers to study the seismicity of the San Andreas fault at Parkfield.
In 1987, the Seismographic Stations celebrated the centennial of its contributions to seismology.
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Berkeley Seismological Lab
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Copyright 1995-2005, The Regents of the University of California.
Last modified: Wed Sep 17 09:20:44 PDT 2008