Earthquake Engineering Research Institute
Learning From Earthquakes

Structural Reconnaissance Observations

  I arrived in Christchurch on March 1st, almost a week after the earthquake.  Rescue and recovery operations were still underway so are the building assessment and critical building projects among other activities. I mostly contributed to the critical building project and gathered as much of the perishable information as possible. I have been to several […]

Coming Out of the Cupboard: Social Media in the Christchurch Earthquake.

Imagine for a moment that you recently traveled to a foreign country to study. You just arrived a few days ago. You are settling in, trying to adjust to the new surrounds, attempting to make friends, and struggling to understand the language and culture. Then a massive earthquake hits. What would you do after the […]

USGS Event Page

https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/usp000huvq/executive#executive

Darfield Space Time Plot

See the Space-Time Plot: Darfield EQ Sequence (0.21 MB PDF) Note: The symbols show epicentral locations scaled to magnitude.  Red symbols indicate events with magnitudes greater than 5.  

Photos of Geotechnical Observations

      Figure 1. Buckels steps.   Figure 2. Lateral spread. Exisitng utility trench is a zone of weakness.                       Figure 3. Liquefaction. Sand ejecta and buckled pavement bricks.   Figure 4. Photo of buckled light rail line.             […]