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Earth & Climate Researcher news SMU In The News Subfeature

Historical data confirms recent increase in West Texas earthquakes

A new analysis of historical seismic data conducted by The University of Texas at Austin, SMU and other academies has found that earthquake activity in West Texas around Pecos has increased dramatically since 2009.

The study, published Nov. 4, 2019, in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, is important because it leverages old, unmined data to track seismic activity over nearly the past two decades – much further back than other studies— to show that activity has increased during the past decade in an area of the Permian Basin that is being heavily developed for oil and gas. Although researchers have generally thought that to be true, the statewide TexNet earthquake monitoring system has been gathering data since only 2017, making it impossible to definitely determine when the cluster of seismic activity around Pecos really began.

The researchers were able to extend the seismic record of the area by turning to the older TXAR system near Lajitas about 150 miles to the south. TXAR is an array of 10 seismographs installed in the 1990s by scientists at SMU (Southern Methodist University) to help track nuclear testing across the world, said lead author Cliff Frohlich, a senior research scientist emeritus at the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics (UTIG).

“Especially for these West Texas earthquakes, we would like to get some information about when they started,” Frohlich said. “I really saw this as a way to bridge the gap before TexNet.”

The TXAR system is some distance from Pecos, but Frohlich said the equipment is highly sensitive and that the area is remote and seismically very quiet, making the system perfect for picking up vibrations from explosions across the world or from earthquakes 150 miles away. Frohlich worked with Chris Hayward, director of SMU’s Geophysics Research Program, to create a method to derive the earthquake data from the international data TXAR collects and build an earthquake catalog for the Delaware Basin near Pecos from 2000 to 2017.

By analyzing data from 2000 to 2017, scientists were able to document more than 7,000 seismic events near Pecos that were determined by the team to be earthquakes. Data on these seismic events had to be manually reviewed to ensure they were in fact earthquakes and not a false detection. This was done by Frohlich and Julia Rosenblit, who was an SMU intern at the time.

Multiple events first started occurring in 2009, when 19 earthquakes of at least magnitude 1 were documented. The rate increased over time, with more than 1,600 earthquakes of magnitude 1 or greater in 2017. Most were so small that no one felt them.

The study shows a correlation between earthquake activity in the area and an increase in oil and gas activity but doesn’t make an effort to directly tie the two together as other studies have done.

“West Texas now has the highest seismicity rates in the state,” said Heather DeShon, study co-author and associate professor at SMU’s Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences. “What remained uncertain is when the earthquakes actually started. This study addresses that.”

This study is the latest in a comprehensive effort to determine what is causing an increase in seismic activity in Texas and how oil and gas operations can be managed to minimize that human-induced element. The state approved the TexNet system in 2015, which is operated in tandem with research efforts by the Center for Integrated Seismicity Research (CISR).

Co-author Peter Hennings, who leads CISR and is a Senior Research Scientist at the UT Bureau of Economic Geology said that fundamental research like this latest study is vital when trying to unravel such a complicated problem.

“The obvious next step is exactly what the University of Texas is doing – conducting these careful studies on the relationship between earthquakes and their human and natural causes to build an integrated understanding,” Hennings said.

SMU seismologists have also been the lead or co-authors of a series of studies on Texas earthquakes. For instance, UT Austin and SMU found that earthquakes triggered by human activity have been happening in Texas since 1925, and they have been widespread throughout the state ever since. In addition, SMU research showed that many of the Dallas-Fort Worth earthquakes were triggered by increases in pore pressure–the pressure of groundwater trapped within tiny spaces inside rocks in the subsurface.

The Bureau of Economic Geology and UTIG are units of the UT Jackson School of Geosciences. Scientists from SMU, Portland State University, the University of Oklahoma and the French institute IFREMER also worked on the study.

Several outlets covered the new research, including The Weather Channel, The Dallas Morning News, Texas Tribune, Midland Reporter-Telegram, and Dallas Observer. – The University of Texas at Austin

 

 

 

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Learning & Education Researcher news SMU In The News Technology

SMU engineering and education professors receive NSF grant to research teaching computer science and computational thinking through community gaming

DALLAS (SMU) – The Lyle School of Engineering, Guildhall and the Simmons School of Education & Human Development at SMU will use a $1,521,615 grant from the National Science Foundation to research teaching computer science and computational thinking through the popular video game, Minecraft. Research will span the fields of game design, human computer interaction, machine learning, curriculum design and education assessment by integrating STEM+C (computing) based curriculum directly into Minecraft. The project will help advance knowledge in game-based learning by building on techniques and experiences from commercial game design. The game and infrastructure produced through the research will serve as a vital computing resource for middle and high school educators.

The grant, which was featured in Dallas Innovates, was awarded to Corey Clark, deputy director of research at SMU Guildhall and an assistant professor of Computer Science at Lyle, Eric Larson, associate professor in Computer Science at Lyle and Leanne Ketterlin Geller, professor and Texas Instrument Endowed Chair in Education at Simmons. Research begins this month with funding extending through 2022. Their aim is to create a more stable, ethical, and inclusive data science workforce by broadening the interest in data science to a more diverse population of K-12 students.

“We’re presented with the challenge of finding creative ways to positively impact student outcomes in STEM and the value it can provide in the learning experience,” said Ketterlin Geller. “We struggle with K-12 student engagement in math and science so this project is an optimal way to help us generate new interest while meeting our education goals and seeing students succeed and excel in these fields.”

“A key initiative of STEM+C is to cultivate the skills for the next generation of data scientists, information scientists, and engineers. Video games provide a technique to engage the next generation of students in a fun and intuitive manner,” said Clark. “Games are developed around fundamental activities, or gameplay atoms, which reflect the experiential learning process through a trial and error in-game conveyance/feedback loop.”

Research will integrate curriculum that aligns with education standards such as Common Core Standards in Mathematics (CCSS-M), Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS-2013), Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA-2017), and California Computer Science Content Standards (CACS-CS 2019) into the successful loops found in Minecraft. These loops contain game mechanics that have shown to engage a large demographic of players across age, gender, race, and socio-economic factors. The project will integrate feedback from educational stakeholders, including teachers and students. Key outcomes from engaging in gameplay that are assessed include changes in students’ interest, attitudes, beliefs, and self-efficacy in STEM+C, engagement in collaborative open-ended solution making, and achievement in related computing and mathematics concepts. – Molly Phillips, Lyle School of Engineering

 

About the Lyle School of Engineering

SMU’s Lyle School of Engineering, founded in 1925, is one of the oldest engineering schools in the Southwest. The school offers eight undergraduate and 29 graduate programs, including master’s and doctoral degrees, through the departments of Civil and Environmental Engineering; Computer Science; Electrical and Computer Engineering; Engineering Management, Information and Systems; and Mechanical Engineering. Lyle students participate in programs in the unique Deason Innovation Gym, providing the tools and space to work on immersion design projects and competitions to accelerate leadership development and the framework for innovation; the Hart Center for Engineering Leadership, helping students develop nontechnical skills to prepare them for leadership in diverse technical fields; the Caruth Institute for Engineering Education, developing new methodologies for incorporating engineering education into K-12 schools; the Linda and Mitch Hart Institute for Technology, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, combining the innovative forces of Lyle and the Cox School of Business to integrate their expertise, resources and guidance to develop technology prototypes and create viable business plans; and the Hunter and Stephanie Hunt Institute for Engineering and Humanity, combining technological innovation with business expertise to address global poverty.

About Guildhall

Since its genesis, SMU Guildhall has set the bar in game development education. Recognized as one of the best game design graduate programs in the world, SMU Guildhall works collaboratively across disciplines and industries to train the next generation of game developers. It’s long held a seat in the Top 10 rankings for game development programs across the world by the Princeton Review, sitting at Number 1 for the past two years. In addition to its Team Game Production curriculum, the Guildhall has been commended for the high quality of its faculty of industry veterans and professionals as well as its career services achievements. The program has graduated over 800 alumni, who now work at more than 270 video game studios and tech companies around the world. The program’s achievements can also be seen in its high-caliber game successes including record breaking downloads, awards, and contest wins. SMU Guildhall offers both a Master of Interactive Technology in Digital Game Development degree and a Professional Certificate of Interactive Technology in Digital Game Development, and it is the only program to offer specializations in all four cornerstones of game development — Art, Design, Production, and Programming. For more information, visit guildhall.smu.edu.

About Simmons School of Education & Human Development

The Annette Caldwell Simmons School of Education and Human Development at SMU reflects the University’s vision of serving the most important educational needs of our city, region and nation, graduating students for successful careers in a variety of fields and providing educational opportunities beyond traditional degree programs. Recognized as a unique and transformative leader in education research, practice and policy, the School is committed to rigorous, research-driven programs that promote evidence-based, effective practices in education and human development.

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Researcher news SMU In The News Subfeature Technology

Dallas Morning News: SMU researcher, Garland students are using smartphones to monitor bridge safety

Brett Story

DALLAS (SMU) – Seems like smartphones can do everything these days. Add to that list gathering information on bridge’s structural health.

Brett Story, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at SMU’s Lyle School of Engineering, and students at Garland High School are using smartphones in passing cars to check if there are any cracks or uneven settling in the foundation of the Briarwood bridge, which crosses over Duck Creek in Garland.

The Dallas Morning News has more on this innovative research.

About SMU

SMU is the nationally ranked global research university in the dynamic city of Dallas. SMU’s alumni, faculty and nearly 12,000 students in seven degree-granting schools demonstrate an entrepreneurial spirit as they lead change in their professions, communities and the world.

 

 

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Earth & Climate Feature Researcher news SMU In The News Subfeature

Researchers unveil new volcanic eruption forecasting technique

Volcanic eruptions and their ash clouds pose a significant hazard to population centers and air travel, especially those that show few to no signs of unrest beforehand. Geologists are now using a technique traditionally used in weather and climate forecasting to develop new eruption forecasting models. By testing if the models are able to capture the likelihood of past eruptions, the researchers are making strides in the science of volcanic forecasting.

The study, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, examined the eruption history of the Okmok volcano in Alaska. In 2008, a large eruption produced an ash plume that extended approximately 1 mile into the sky over the Aleutian Islands – posing a significant hazard to aircraft engines along a route that transports roughly 50,000 people between Asia and North America each day, the researchers said.

“The 2008 eruption of Okmok came as a bit of surprise,” said University of Illinois graduate student and lead author Jack Albright. “After an eruption that occurred in 1997, there were periods of slight unrest, but very little seismicity or other eruption precursors. In order to develop better forecasting, it is crucial to understand volcanic eruptions that deviate from the norm.”

Geologists typically forecast eruptions by looking for established patterns of preeruption unrest such as earthquake activity, groundswell and gas release, the researchers said. Volcanoes like Okmok, however, don’t seem to follow these established patterns.

To build and test new models, the team utilized a statistical data analysis technique developed after World War II called Kalman filtering.

“The version of Kalman filtering that we used for our study was updated in 1996 and has continued to be used in weather and climate forecasting, as well as physical oceanography,” said U. of I. geology professor Patricia Gregg, a co-author of the study that included collaborators from SMU (Southern Methodist University) and Michigan State University. “We are the first group to use the updated method in volcanology, however, and it turns out that this technique works well for the unique unrest that led up to Okmok’s 2008 eruption.”

One of those unique attributes is the lack of increased seismicity before the eruption, the researchers said. In a typical preeruption sequence, it is hypothesized that the reservoir under the volcano stays the same size as it fills with magma and hot gases. That filling causes pressure in the chamber to increase and the surrounding rocks fracture and move, causing earthquakes.

“In the 2008 eruption, it appears that the magma chamber grew larger to accommodate the increasing pressure, so we did not see the precursor seismic activity we would expect,” Albright said. “By looking back in time with our models, or hindcasting, we can now observe that stress had been building up in the rocks around the chamber for weeks, and the growth of the magma system ultimately led to its failure and eruption.”

This type of backward and forward modeling allows researchers to watch a volcanic system evolve over time. “While we stopped our analysis after the 2008 eruption, we are now able to propagate this new model forward in time, bring it to present day, and forecast where Okmok volcano is heading next,” Gregg said.

The researchers posit that these models will continue to find other less-recognized eruption precursors, but acknowledge that every volcano is different and that the models must be tailored to fit each unique system.

The volcano forecasting technique used in this study was based on volcano deformation data from GPS and satellite radars. Geophysicist Zhong Lu, a professor in the Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences at SMU and a global expert in satellite radar imagery analysis, processed the satellite radar images and provided the volcano deformation maps for this research.

The U. of I. team is working in collaboration with researchers from Alaska Volcano Observatory and SMU to help build a stronger forecasting system for the Aleutian Islands area. The researchers received $541,921 in grant money from NASA for the work in early 2019.

Popular Mechanics, Sci Tech Daily and other outlets highlighted the study. — University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

 

 

 

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Plants & Animals Researcher news SMU In The News Subfeature

Why do birds migrate at night?

UT Southwestern Medical Center and SMU found migratory birds maximize how much light they get from their environment, so they can migrate even at night 

DALLAS (SMU) – It was a puzzle about birds.

Migratory birds are known to rely on Earth’s magnetic field to help them navigate the globe. And it was suspected that a protein called cryptochrome, which is sensitive to blue light, was making it possible for birds to do this.

Yet many of these animals are also known to migrate at night when there isn’t much light available. So it wasn’t clear how cryptochrome would function under these conditions in birds.

A new study led by UT Southwestern Medical Center in collaboration with SMU (Southern Methodist University), though, may have figured out the answer to that puzzle.

Researchers found that cryptochromes from migratory birds have evolved a mechanism that enhances their ability to respond to light, which can enable them to sense and respond to magnetic fields.

“We were able to show that the protein cryptochrome is extremely efficient at collecting and responding to low levels of light,” said SMU chemist Brian D. Zoltowski, who was one of the lead authors of a new study on the findings. “The result of this research is that we now understand how vertebrate cryptochromes can respond to very low light intensities and function under night time conditions.”

The study was published in the journal PNAS in September.

(From left) UT Southwestern Medical Center research specialist Yogarany Chelliah, Dr. Joseph Takahashi, and SMU’s Dr. Brian Zoltowski. Photo courtesy of Southern Methodist University, Kim Leeson.

Cryptochromes are found in both plants and animals and are responsible for circadian rhythms in various species. In birds, scientists were specifically focused on learning more about an unusual eye protein called CRY4, which is part of a class of cryptochromes.

The lab of Joseph Takahashi, a circadian rhythms expert at UT Southwestern Medical Center, worked with other UT Southwestern scientists to purify and solve the crystal structure of the protein – the first atomic structure of a photoactive cryptochrome molecule from a vertebrate. The lab of Brian Zoltowski, an expert in blue-light photoreceptors, studied the efficiency of the light-driven reactions –  identifying a pathway unique to CRY4 proteins that facilitates function under low light conditions.

“Although in plants and insects, cryptochromes are known to be photoactive, which means they react to sunlight. Among vertebrates much less is known, and the majority of vertebrate cryptochromes do not appear to be photoactive,” said Takahashi, chairman of neuroscience at UT Southwestern and an investigator with Howard Hughes Medical Institute. “This photosensitivity and the possibility that CRY4 is affected by the magnetic field make this specific cryptochrome a very interesting molecule.”

Researchers took a sample of the CRY4 from a pigeon and grew crystals of the protein. They then exposed the crystals to x-rays, making it possible for them to map out the location of all the atoms in the protein.

And while pigeons are not night-migratory songbirds, the sequences of their CRY4 proteins are very similar, the study noted.

“These structures allow us to visualize at the atomic scale how these proteins function and understand how they may use blue-light to sense magnetic fields,” said Zoltowski, associate professor of chemistry at SMU’s Dedman College of Humanities & Sciences. “The new structures also provide the first atomic level detail of how these proteins work, opening the door for more detailed studies on cryptochromes in migratory organisms.”

In the study, researchers discovered unusual changes to key regions of the protein structure that can enhance their ability to collect light from their environment.

“Cryptochromes work by absorbing a photon of light, which causes an electron to move through a sequence of amino acids. These amino acids typically consist of a chain of 3 or 4 sites that act as a wire that electrons can flow through,” explained Zoltowski. “But in pigeons, it was identified that this chain may be extended to contain 5 sites.”

This mutation of the electron chain in pigeons makes cryptochrome less dependent on a bird’s environment having a lot of light for the protein to be activated.

“Birds have evolved a mechanism to enhance the efficiency. So even when there is very little light around, they have enough signal generated to migrate,” Zoltowski said.

Other co-authors of the study include UT Southwestern’s Yogarany Chelliah, Anushka Wickramaratne, Wei Xu, Ryan E. Hibbs and Carla B. Green; SMU’s Nischal Karki; Henrik Mouritsen from the University of Oldenburg; and Peter J. Hore and Lauren Jarocha from the University of Oxford.

 

About SMU

SMU is the nationally ranked global research university in the dynamic city of Dallas. SMU’s alumni, faculty and nearly 12,000 students in seven degree-granting schools demonstrate an entrepreneurial spirit as they lead change in their professions, communities and the world.