The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/earthquakes/)
Dissatisfied with the University’s response to the recent Turkish and Syrian earthquakes, students hold fundraisers to improve awareness and provide support for people affected by the tragedy.
Following the terrible 7.8 magnitude quake on February 6th, there was another 6.3 magnitude shock on Monday. In the American media, these events have been covered with less attention than necessary, with the news of the most recent second quake six panels down on the New York Times online front page as of Tuesday morning and later disappeared entirely. With a death toll of over 42,000 affecting a major nation according to official numbers cited by the AP, it is unimaginable that the U.S. media is not devoting additional resources and time to coverage there.
The McLaskey Research Group, led by Prof. Gregory McLaskey, civil and environmental engineering, has made a breakthrough in the study of earthquakes by experimentally showing that the fracture energy and breakdown energy of earthquakes are not equivalent.
“The process is not us telling them what to do, but rather helping them understand the implications of our research,” Dr. Lucy Jones said.
If you’ve ever seen footage of enormous buildings swaying uncontrollably during an earthquake or actually felt the Earth opening under your feet, you would know just how terrifying an earthquake can be. For people in earthquake prone areas who have to endure the natural phenomena on a regular basis, it is important that their homes are safer and more resilient. A project team at Cornell aims to help with that. Cornell University Seismic Design Team, started in 2013, works to model and prototype earthquake resilient buildings as part of an annual competition, Undergraduate Seismic Design Competition, organized by the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute. For the competition, various national and international teams submit a prototype of a building capable of withstanding varying earthquake magnitudes within certain architectural constraints.