Citation

Minson SE, Brooks BA, Glennie CL, Murray JR, Langbein JO, Owen SE, Heaton TH, Iannucci RA, Hauser DL. Sci. Adv. 2015; 1(3): e1500036.

Affiliation

National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, American Association for the Advancement of Science)

DOI

10.1126/sciadv.1500036

PMID

26601167

Abstract

Earthquake early warning (EEW) can reduce harm to people and infrastructure from earthquakes and tsunamis, but it has not been implemented in most high earthquake-risk regions because of prohibitive cost. Common consumer devices such as smartphones contain low-cost versions of the sensors used in EEW. Although less accurate than scientific-grade instruments, these sensors are globally ubiquitous. Through controlled tests of consumer devices, simulation of an M w (moment magnitude) 7 earthquake on California's Hayward fault, and real data from the M w 9 Tohoku-oki earthquake, we demonstrate that EEW could be achieved via crowdsourcing.

Language: en