Use Your Laptop and Join The Quake Catcher Network

Earthquake safety is a responsibility shared by billions worldwide. The Quake-Catcher Network (QCN) provides software so that individuals can join together to improve earthquake monitoring, earthquake awareness, and the science of earthquakes. Much the same way as Seti@Home and Folding@Home bring together PC's for crunching numbers, the QCN project links together existing laptops and desktops in hopes to form the worlds largest and densest earthquake monitoring system.

Many laptops have tiny accelerometers that warn a computer if it is being dropped so that it can protect its hard drive from the fall. Like similar projects, the application you download and install only operates when your computer is idle. On 07/29/2008 at 11:42AM Local time, a magnitude 5.4 earthquake occurred in the Greater Los Angeles Basin. This earthquake was quickly detected by QCN and was considered a successful test of their project.

The QCN provides a natural way to engage students and the public in earthquake detection and research. This project places USB-connectable sensors in K-12 classrooms as an educational tool for teaching science and a scientific tool for studying and monitoring earthquakes. Through a variety of interactive experiments students can learn about earthquakes and the hazards that earthquakes pose. For example, students can learn how the vibrations of an earthquake decrease with distance by jumping up and down at increasing distances from the classroom sensor and plotting the decreased amplitude of the seismic signal displayed on their computer.

More information: QCN