UC Scientist Monitors the Haiti Earthquakes from 1,600 Miles Away in Ohio

When Attila Kilinc, a geochemist in the University of Cincinnati’s McMicken College of Arts & Sciences, came to Ohio from earthquake-riddled California, he was surprised that Ohio had no earthquake recording devices.

He remembers thinking, “Oh well, Ohio is an inactive state.” He soon found out that he was mistaken. So he volunteered to run Ohio’s first earthquake monitoring station and, with assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, he set a station up in 1995 at the University of Cincinnati. There are now 25 such stations in Ohio.

“Ohio actually experiences about two earthquakes per year,” Kilinc says. Luckily, in southwest Ohio, where UC is located, he says that “chances are pretty good that we’re not going to have another major one anytime soon.”

Not so for the poor people of Haiti who, on January 12, 2010, experienced an earthquake of magnitude 7.0. Subsequently, there have been hundreds of aftershocks of varying intensity.

“These aftershocks can go on for days to weeks to months,” says Kilinc. “Typically, however, there is a decrease in intensity. We are seeing some registering close to 6 on the Richter scale, such as that felt on January 20. That was not an aftershock; that’s a new earthquake.”

The force of earthquakes can be described in two different terms: magnitude and intensity. (One earthquake will have only one magnitude but might have different intensities across its range of impact.)

Magnitude is measured on the Richter scale, which was developed by Professor Charles F. Richter in 1935, based on the measurement of the size (or amplitude) of the waves on the seismograph charts. Each one-digit increase in the Richter scale represents a tenfold increase in magnitude of the earthquake.

“UC’s seismometer records all earthquakes anywhere in the world with magnitudes greater than 2.5,” says Kilinc. (Below this range they are generally referred to as “microearthquakes.”)

The other way to measure earthquakes, which is not used as frequently these days as it is more subjective, is intensity. The Mercalli Intensity scale, reported in Roman numerals, is based on two factors: people’s descriptions and damage done to buildings.

“When I was doing postdoctoral research at Stanford, I found that eyewitness descriptions were somewhat unreliable,” Kilinc says. “One person would describe the horrible shaking and movement and how scared they were, then the next person would say, ‘There was an earthquake?’”

Damage done to buildings is a more reliable indicator, but this can only be measured with buildings that were not specifically designed and built to withstand earthquakes.

And beyond deriving a number, this is where the true cost mounts. As Haiti continues to experience more temblors, partially destroyed buildings are prone to complete collapse.

Learn More

4/18/2008   To a Fault: The Bottom Line on Earthquakes

The 5.2 earthquake that jolted area residents from their sleep on April 18 was a surprise to some, but not to researchers at the University of Cincinnati.

1/15/2010    Haitian Earthquake Response

President Williams calls on the UC community to respond to the great need in Haiti, following the devastating earthquake.

Listen to Professor Kilinc’s interview with Ann Thompson from Sunday, Jan. 24, for "Focus on Technology" during “Cincinnati Edition”

on

WVXU, 91.7-FM.

Watch Professor Kilinc's interview with Brian Hamrick on WLWT-TV.