This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
The U.S. west coast is subject to significant risk of very large earthquakes, and heavily populated Southern California is particularly vulnerable owing to its proximity to the San Andreas Fault. The linkage of this fault system through the Salton Sea region is poorly understood, in part because the structure beneath the Salton Sea has not been defined. The project, conducted in conjunction with a deployment of on-land seismic stations, will address that problem by deploying an array of ocean bottom seismometers (OBS) on the floor of the Salton Sea, and conducting a complementary multi channel seismic survey aimed at imaging the structure beneath the Salton Trough. Improved understanding of the Earthquake hazard in this region has direct societal benefit. The project will also contribute to science education in California, and support the Ph.D. research of a young female graduate student at UCLA.
