CERI
Our first stop of the afternoon will be at the University
of Memphis, Center for Earthquake Research Information (CERI), located
at 3918 Central Ave. CERI is involved in a large variety of endeavors
related to earthquakes. Some of which include: graduate studies, public
information and education, and local/global earthquake research. Housed
within CERI is a component group of the U. S. Geological Survey. Our contact
person for the tour is Michelle Dry, Educational Resources Manager.
Since
most earthquake monitoring and research today is done using computers,
there isn't much to "see" at CERI. There is however lots of information
and 
knowledge
to gain. We will begin with a short tour of the physical part of
CERI. We will visit the educational building. Here we will see an example
of an old seismograph. While these seismographs still take readings, there
is a much more sophisticated computer software system currently being used
to monitor earthquakes. We will take a look at an example of this computer
system, pictured here and housed within the conference center of CERI.
The majority of our tour will take place in the conference
room of the education building. Here, Michelle Dry will give us an overview
of earthquake information for the Memphis area using a Power point presentation,
posters and other visual aids and a variety of hands-on demonstration tools. 
Memphis is located along the New Madrid fault zone. The
zone includes a series of faults beneath the continental crust in an area
known as the Reelfoot Rift. This fault system extends some 150 miles
in length from near Marked Tree, Arkansas, through northwest Tennessee,
the boot heal of Missouri, extreme west Kentucky and to the southern part
of Illinois.
| New Madrid Fault.
Next site on the trip. |
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 Questions/Comments? |
Graphics
CERI,
logo, as Retrieved from the World Wide Web, May, 5, 2003.
Photos
Thomas, Donna (June 2003).
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