Going Further

Variations

Going Deeper into Earth's Interior. How does the pattern of shear wave velocities change as you go even deeper into Earth's interior? You can click the links below to download data for 200 and 300 km below Earth's surface then create line graphs similar to those in this chapter.

Other Data

GIS-ready data files showing shear wave velocities for 200 and 300 km below Earth's surface have also been prepared. Right-click to save these files to your desktop or documents folder.

My World has many built-in datasets that you may be interested in investigating. Use the pull-down menu to select the Geology data library to locate selected layers.

Other Techniques

Seismic Waves: A Program for Visualizing Wave Propagation

Access/download Seismic Waves program
This free program was created by Alan L. Jones, a research scientist at Purdue University. It is for Windows computer platforms.

To download this program that depicts how waves propagate from an earthquake epicenter to seismic stations throughout Earth, click the link above, then click the Seismic - Waves link. Note that the program only runs on computers running Windows operating systems.

The program shows waves propagating out from the epicenter on a three-dimensional view of Earth while moving through a cross-sectional view of Earth. The two views are synchronized with actual event waveforms so that as a particular phase arrives at a station, you see the effect on the seismogram. Sample output from the Northridge Earthquake is shown at right.


Other Tools

The shapefile or "GIS-ready" data from this chapter can be imported into any GIS and most visualization tools such as AEJEE and ArcGIS.

Case Studies with Tool

Other EET chapters that use My World GIS and/or other GIS software include the following:

How Cities Affect Their Local Climate—Explore the urban heat island effect using student collected surface temperature data. Subset large datasets, buffer others, examine spatial relationships, and gather statistics to investigate temperature differences in urban and rural school sites.

Detecting El Nino in Sea Surface Temperature Data—Create and analyze fifteen years of average SST maps to find El Niño and La Niño events.

Evidence for Plate Tectonics—Identify relationships among sea-floor age, earthquakes, and volcanoes to understand how they support the theory of plate tectonics.

Exploring Monsoon Precipitation and Streamflow in a Semi-Arid Watershed—Investigate the effect of summer thunderstorms on streamflow in a semi-arid watershed in Arizona.

Investigating Earthquakes with AEJEE—Download earthquake data from the USGS. Bring it into a GIS and analyze it to predict where the next big earthquake will occur on Earth.

Is Greenland Melting?—Explore map layers to examine annual melting and long-term changes of Greenland's ice sheet.

Mapping Local Data—Follow a study of Urban Heat Islands as an example of a map-based science research project.

Seeing the Forest for the Trees: What's in Your Woods?—Investigate forest biodiversity in Maine using a spreadsheet and My World GIS. Then consider the environmental factors that contribute to tree species diversity.

Protecting Wetlands from Exurban Development—Examine land-use changes around Macclenny, Florida. Propose locations for future development that minimize impacts on wetlands.

Tsunami Run-up Prediction for Seaside, Oregon with My World GIS—Download and examine global, historical tsunami run-up patterns. Acquire DEM contours and import them into My World GIS. Then visualize the potential sea level rise that could occur during a tsunami run-up event near Seaside, Oregon.