Geoscience Students Make Seismic Measurements on Old Main Lawn

Photo Submitted

Undergraduate students in a petroleum geophysics class participate in measurement of seismic activity.

Students and professors from the Department of Geosciences in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences participated in a seismic measuring exercise on campus this fall.

In November, before the weather got too chilly, Christopher Liner, chair and professor of the Department of Geosciences, took his petroleum geophysics undergraduate students to Old Main lawn to shoot a small seismic line as a part of his class.

In the exercise, students planted seismic sensors, or geophones, into the ground to measure the waves. Geophones have two-inch spikes that do no damage to the ground, but allow accurate readings of seismic waves. Seismic surveys of this kind are nondestructive and have no impact on surface or underground facilities.

To create these seismic waves, students swung sledgehammers to strike metal plates on the ground, generating waves that can be measured up to several hundred feet away. An analysis of this data gave Liner and his students information about subsurface geological layers. 

To learn more about petroleum geophysics or the GEOS 4533 course, email Christopher Liner at liner@uark.edu.