The “Seismo Blog” at the UC Berkeley Seismological Laboratory

Date: 4/25/2019

Time: 11:00 AM

Room: Vashon

Seismologists face a public communications challenge. The first question anyone asks them, if there has not been a big quake, is “When is the next big one?” requiring an explanation of why we cannot predict earthquakes. If there has been a big quake, we have to answer questions from the public and media about why the effects are, or aren’t, so bad. Looking for a different path to communicate earthquake science to the public, we initiated the Seismo Blog in the Autumn of 2008. The goal of this blog is to present seismological information in bite-sized pieces related to the experience of the readers in the context of current or historical earthquake events. The blog provides a different path to its audience than either a lecture, which may present detailed information but is ephemeral, or an interview, from which the information conveyed to the public is chosen by the reporter or editor.

In the Seismo Blog, we can set the tone, the wording, the content and associated figures and make our point. In addition, the reader can return to past blogs for clarification and better understanding. Each blog post is meant to be a complete story and with a concise explanation about a single aspect of seismology, covering the topic in lay terms, but still as scientifically accurately as possible. Thus, the many existing and future posts taken together can help to provide a more complete picture of seismology to the public. The Seismo Blog is great attractor to our website.

Presenting Author: Horst Rademacher

Authors