Presentations will Include:
Design Projects
Presented by students
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Seismic History and Recent Activity in Arizona
by Dr. Michael Conway
On June 28, 2014, an earthquake of magnitude 5.3 occurred in a remote corner of Arizona, west of Safford, near the New Mexico state line. Residents of nearby Duncan, AZ reported strong shacking and minor damage. People as far away as Phoenix, and as far east Alamogordo, NM reported feeling the temblor. This earthquake should serve as a wake-up call to those of us in southeastern Arizona that this part of the Basin and Range Province is not immune to moderate or even large (M 7.0) earthquakes. And it should serve as a reminder to design engineers that seismic forces need to be a factor in the design of structures in southern Arizona. (The same is certainly true of northern and southwestern Arizona, which see dozens of earthquakes each year.
Dr. Conway will provide insights into the overall geology of Arizona, give a brief history of seismic activity in Arizona, and explain how seismic events are monitored, how the intensity is measured, and the difficulty in providing useful predictions of seismic events. Dr. Conway will also describe the overall mission of The Arizona Gelogical Survey and provide information on some of the other hazards they monitor, such as earth fissures, flooding and fire.
Biographical Sketch of Dr. Conway
Dr. Conway received his B.S. degree from Indiana University, his M.S. from Northern Arizona University and his Ph.D. from Michigan Technological University. He joined the Arizona Geological Survey in 2007 as their Science Outreach Officer and Section Chief of the Arizona Extension Service. From 1997 to 2007, he was a professor of geosciences at Arizona Western College, Yuma, AZ., and director of the honors program. Prior to that, he was a research scientist at the Center for Nuclear Waste Regulatory Analysis in San Antonio, TX. His training is in Volcanology with special emphasis on small-volume basaltic volcanism (re: cinder cones). He has traveled to the Kamchatka Peninsula, the San Francisco and Mormon Mountain volcanic fields of northern Arizona, the Big Pine volcanic fields of Owens, CA, the Michoacán volcanic field of Mexico; as well as Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Columbia.
His current interests include earth science outreach education, and GIS mapping and GIS analysis of Native American rock-art of southern Arizona.