Record earthquakes have left OU students shaken during a weekend filled with Mother Nature’s temper.
The recent earthquakes constitute the largest and third-largest seismic events in Oklahoma’s recorded history. Before this weekend, the largest earthquake was a 5.5-magnitude quake out of Canadian County on April 9, 1952.
Randy Keller, director of the Oklahoma Geological Survey, said the earthquakes occurred because of a slip at the Wilzetta fault line, which runs from Pottawatomie County to the western part of Creek County.
“The Wilzetta fault isn’t big, but it’s big enough to build up a significant amount of tectonic stress,” Keller said. “By using the seismic data [from the earthquakes] and something we call focal mechanisms, we discovered that the east side of the fault shifted southward.”
While many Oklahomans remember three distinct earthquakes, the first event felt Saturday morning acted as a foreshock to the 5.6 magnitude quake later that night, according to the survey.
Consequently, Monday’s earthquake is considered an aftershock.
Keller said that Oklahoma has certainly seen an increase in seismic activity, but at the same time, the increase in the number of seismographs makes it much easier to detect earthquakes. Many of these seismographs are part of a National Science Foundation project titled “Earth Scope.”
“When you listen more carefully, you’re going to hear more,” Keller said.
And the recent seismic activity has also sent tremors through OU’s geological curriculum.
Professor Barry Weaver, who teaches GEOL 1003 “Volcanoes and Earthquakes,” said he includes Oklahoma’s earthquakes in his curriculum, but the record-setting tremors over the weekend have made the class topical.
“Anytime something this relevant to the class occurs, it creates a very positive learning experience,” Weaver said. “In this case, the students are learning how earthquakes directly affect their lives.”
Students may be slightly anxious about being rattled once more, but Keller said it’s to be expected that areas experience random increases in seismic activity.
“Many of these old faults sit around for centuries and then break,” Keller said. “As plates squeeze together, stress builds up and releases as an earthquake. On the scale of tens of years, the country will see random series of earthquakes.”
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ahmed1381 6 months, 1 week ago
Conco school of geology and geophysics FTW :) Keller is one of the Best professors at OU