The Berkeley Seismological Laboratory conducts essential research on earthquakes and solid earth processes while collecting and delivering high quality geophysical data.
We provide robust and real-time earthquake and hazard information on Northern California earthquakes, in collaboration with our partners.
We enable the broad consumption of earthquake information by the general public while educating and training students at all levels.
A Quake Inside a Diving Plate
The magnitude 7 earthquake which shook large parts of Alaska last Friday morning (Nov 30, 2018) caused extensive damage in and around Anchorage, with more than 300,000 inhabitants, the largest city our northernmost State. Roads crumbled, wide cracks appeared in bridges and overpasses, and the Alaska Railroad line between Anchorage and Fairbanks has been closed since the quake due to significant damage to the tracks...
Ten Years of the ‘Seismo Blog’
"In search of another way to communicate earthquake science to the public, we began an experiment at the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory (BSL) ten years ago this fall. We wanted to offer seismological information in bite‐sized pieces, tell small stories about the restless Earth and its temblors and do this over and over again. In short, we created a blog about seismology and earthquakes. Following a decade of publication and more than 160 blog posts, it is time to report about our experience with the ‘Seismo Blog.’..." (Link for those with SRL access)
A Deadly Quake and a Tsunami Mystery
The strong earthquake, which struck the Indonesian island of Sulawesi just a few miles south of the equator on Friday evening (local time) was remarkable in many ways...
Infragravity Wave Radiation Across the Shelf Break
Berkeley Seismo Lab seismologists Barbara Romanowicz and Taka'aki Taira used Cascadia Array data to model the origin and radiation of infragravity waves in a JGR Oceans paper collaborating with partners in industry. More...
Deep and Strong
When on Sunday shortly after noon (local time) a very strong earthquake occurred in the Pacific Ocean about 220 miles east of Fiji's capital Suva, hardly anybody noticed...
Earthquakes on Top of the World
When on Sunday morning shortly before 7 am local time, the citizens of Fairbanks in Alaska awoke to noticeable ground shaking, many of them thought these seismic waves were coming from the south...
Destruction in the Land of Earthquakes and Volcanoes
More than 140 people died on Sunday, when the Indonesian island of Lombok was shaken by the second strong earthquake within a week...
When Creep becomes Unsteady
The San Andreas Fault is without doubt the most prominent earthquake fault in California. On maps it is usually depicted as a single continuous line reaching from the Salton Sea in the south all the way to Cape Mendocino in Northern California...
