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New map outlines seismic faults across DFW region

Study by SMU, UT Austin and Stanford scientists rates faults for potential earthquakes; Faults under DFW urban area viewed as lower quake hazard

 

DALLAS (SMU) – Scientists from SMU, The University of Texas at Austin and Stanford University found that the majority of faults underlying the Fort Worth Basin are as sensitive to forces that could cause them to slip as those that have hosted earthquakes in the past.

 

The new study, published July 23rd by the journal Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (BSSA), provides the most comprehensive fault information for the region to date. 

 

Fault slip potential modeling explores two scenarios: a model based on subsurface stress on the faults prior to high-volume wastewater injection and a model of those forces reflecting increase in fluid pressure due to injection.

 

A simplified version of the fault map created by the team of researchers. The map includes faults that are visible at the surface (green) and faults that are underground (black). The solid line indicates underground faults that researchers were able to map at a high resolution. The dotted line indicates faults that were mapped at a medium resolution. According to the research, in the presence of wastewater injection activity, the majority of the faults in the area are as susceptible to slipping as those faults that have already produced earthquakes. The map also marks earthquake locations and waste-water injection well locations and amounts. Credit: UT’s Bureau of Economic Geology

None of the faults shown to have the highest potential for an earthquake are located in the most populous Dallas-Fort Worth urban area or in the areas where there are currently many wastewater disposal wells.

 

Yet, the study also found that the majority of faults underlying the Fort Worth Basin are as sensitive to forces that could cause them to slip and cause an earthquake as those that have hosted earthquakes in recent years.

 

Though the majority of the faults identified on this map have not produced an earthquake, understanding why some faults have slipped and others with similar fault slip potential have not continues to be researched, said SMU seismologist and study co-author Heather DeShon, who has been the lead investigator of a series of other studies exploring the cause of the North Texas earthquakes.

Earthquakes were virtually unheard of in North Texas until slightly more than a decade ago. But more than 200 earthquakes have occurred in the region since late 2008, ranging in magnitude from 1.6 to 4.0. A series of studies have linked these events to the disposal of wastewater from oil and gas operations by injecting it deep into the earth at high volumes, triggering “dead” faults nearby.

A total of 251 faults have been identified in the Fort Worth Basin, but the researchers suspect that more exist that haven’t been identified. 

The study found that the faults remained relatively stable if they were left undisturbed. However, wastewater injection sharply increased the chances of these faults slipping, if they weren’t managed properly.

 

“That means the whole system of faults is sensitive,” said the lead author of the study Peter L. Hennings, a research scientist from UT Austin’s Bureau of Economic Geology and the principal investigator at the Center for Integrated Seismicity Research (CISR). 

DeShon said the new study provides fundamental information regarding earthquake hazard to the Dallas-Fort Worth region.

 

“The SMU earthquake catalog and the Texas Seismic Network catalog provide necessary earthquake data for understanding faults active in Texas right now,” she said. “This study provides key information to allow the public, cities, state and federal governments and industry to understand potential hazard and design effective public policies, regulations and mitigation strategies.”

“Industrial activities can increase the probability of triggering earthquakes before they would happen naturally, but there are steps we can take to reduce that probability,” added co-author Jens-Erik Lund Snee, a doctoral student at Stanford University.

 

Earthquake rates, like wastewater injection volumes, have decreased significantly since a peak in 2012.  But as long as earthquakes occur, earthquake hazard remains. Dallas-Fort Worth remains the highest risk region for earthquakes in Texas because of population density.

Even after the earthquakes died away, North Texas residents have wondered about the region’s vulnerability to future earthquakes – especially since no map was available to pinpoint the existence of all known faults in the region.  The new data, while still incomplete, benefited from information gleaned from newly released reflection seismic data held by oil and gas companies, reanalysis of publicly available well logs, and geologic outcrop information.

U of T at Austin and Stanford University provided the fault data and calculated fault slip potential. SMU, meanwhile, has been tracking seismic activity — which measures when the earth shakes —since people in the Dallas-Fort Worth area felt the first tremors near DFW International Airport in 2008. A catalog of all those tremors was recently published in June in the journal BSSA.

SMU seismologists have also been the lead or co-authors of a series of studies on the North Texas earthquakes. 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. An independent study done by SMU’s seismologist Beatrice Magnani found that wastewater injection reactivated dormant faults near Dallas that had been dormant for the last 300 million years.  

DeShon said any future plan to mine for oil or natural gas in Fort Worth basin should be done with an understanding that the basin contains several faults that are highly-sensitive to pore-pressure changes. The study noted that rates of injection dropped sharply in the Fort Worth basin, but the practice still continues. Most of the injection that has taken place has been concentrated in the Johnson, Tarrant, and Parker counties, near areas of continued seismic activity.  

“The largest earthquake the Dallas-Fort Worth region experienced was a magnitude 4 in 2015” DeShon said. “The U.S. Geological Survey and Red Cross provide practical preparedness advice for your home and work places. Just as we prepare for tornado season in north Texas, it remains important for us to have a plan for experiencing earthquake shaking.”

Many outlets covered the news:

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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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Texas’ strategic goal for students’ debt burden shows potential promise and pitfalls

SMU professor found black and Latinx college graduates had some of the highest debt-to-income ratios 

DALLAS (SMU) –College students in Texas who graduated from public universities with a bachelor’s degree had, on average, student loan debts that equaled 74 percent of what they earned in their first-year wages, according to a new study from SMU (Southern Methodist University). 

The study, which looked at students who started college between 2004 and 2008, also shows that black and Latinx students are predicted to borrow larger amounts of college debt than white students compared to what they’ll make in their first job. 

The findings suggest that if public universities try to meet the goals of a Texas initiative designed to increase attainment and reduce student debt burdens, the institutions may inadvertently be discouraged from educating historically underserved students.

Dominique Baker

“Even when controlling for prior income, parental education, choice of major and the time it took to get their degree, historically underserved students are predicted to have higher debt-to-income ratios,” said Dominique J. Baker, author of the study and assistant professor of education policy at SMU’s Simmons School of Education & Human Development. “This means that any sanctions associated with a policy like the ‘strategic goal’ in Texas would likely punish state institutions simply for educating students who are predicted to have higher debt-to-income ratios.”    

Baker’s study is the first to investigate the debt-to-income ratio in Texas since the state created the 60x30TX strategic plan. The plan calls for increased completion of undergraduate programs in shorter periods of time, as well as efforts to keep undergraduate student debt at or below 60 percent of first-year wages by 2030. 

Baker’s study only focuses on students who earned a bachelor’s degree. The 60x30TX plan also includes students who earn a credential or associate’s degree who have smaller debt-to-income ratios than bachelor’s degree recipients.  

The findings, which were recently published in AERA Open, suggest that the state of Texas may find it difficult to maintain the 60 percent goal given the demographic and borrowing trends in the state.

On average, students who graduated with a bachelor’s degree after attending a public university had an average $25,794 of undergraduate loan debt. That number jumped to $33,255 when loans held by parents were also included. 

Yet, students earned approximately $34,132 during their first year after earning a degree, meaning that the average student’s debt-to-income was 74 percent, according to the study. If you factor in the amount that parents took out in loans for their child’s college education, the average debt-to-income ratio was closer to 92 percent. 

In addition, the study found that black students, on average, borrowed $7,214 more than their white peers, while Latinx students borrowed $453 more. 

The state of Texas has emphasized that debt-to-income ratios at certain institutions will not be held to the 60 percent threshold. However, conversations have begun that explore attaching sanctions to individual institution’s debt-to-income ratio. 

The study highlights that this could be concerning as the public universities that were shown to have the highest median debt burdens in Texas were Prairie View A&M University, Texas Southern University, Stephen F. Austin State University, Texas A&M University – Commerce and the University of North Texas at Dallas. Many of these colleges also have higher-than-average rates of Latinx and black student enrollment, Baker noted. 

“So it would be inequitable to sanction institutions solely for serving certain student populations,” Baker said.

The study was based on data from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and the Texas Workforce Commission. Baker merged information from both sources to determine students’ debt-to-income ratios.  

Only four-year college students who graduated with a bachelor’s degree and worked full-time in the year immediately following graduation in Texas were included. The 40,000 students who were part of the study started undergraduate college between 2004 and 2008.

Baker said that the Texas goal of keeping the debt-to-income ratio at 60 percent or less for undergraduates is admirable. But she warned that any state looking to adopt such a model should be cautious about penalizing public universities that routinely fail to meet that target for its students because those colleges have more racial minorities, like a historically-black college.    

“Future research needs to be conducted on incorporating measures of affordability in state accountability structures in ways that do not penalize underserved student populations,” she said.

Student debt has become a key issue in the 2020 presidential campaign, as college tuition continues to rise and borrowers nationwide owe a total of $1.5 trillion in federal student loan debt. Concern over students’ ability to repay undergraduate debt led to the creation of goal 4 of the 60x30TX strategic plan, which was developed by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.

The Dallas Morning News wrote about the study here.

 

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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White House recognizes Walkington with Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers

DALLAS (SMU) – Candace Walkington, an associate professor in Teaching and Learning at SMU (Southern Methodist University), is a recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). Announced by the White House, the award is the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government to outstanding scientists and engineers who are beginning their independent research careers and who show exceptional promise for leadership in science and technology.

Walkington, who works in SMU’s Simmons School of Education & Human Development, is among 11 selected from Texas to receive the award. She was nominated by the U.S. Department of Education.

Her research focuses on how abstract mathematical ideas can become connected to students’ concrete, everyday experiences so concepts are more understandable. By examining students’ out-of-school areas of interest and their intended careers, her research looks at “personalizing” mathematics instruction.

For more on her research, see the following:

Walkington, C., Clinton, V., & Shivraj, P. (2018). How Readability Factors Are Differentially Associated with Performance for Students of Different Backgrounds When Solving Math Word Problems. American Educational Research Journal, 55(2), 362-414. DOI: 10.3102/0002831217737028

Walkington, C. & Bernacki, M. (2018). Personalization of Instruction: Design Dimensions and Implications for Cognition. Journal of Experimental Education, 86(1), 50-68.

Walkington, C. (2013). Using learning technologies to personalize instruction to student interests: The impact of relevant contexts on performance and learning outcomes. Journal of Educational Psychology, 105(4), 932-945.

 

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SMU’s ‘Titans in a Jar’ could answer key questions ahead of NASA’s space exploration

NASA headed to Saturn’s ‘Titan’ moon in 2026 to look for signs of past or present life 

DALLAS (SMU) – Researchers from Southern Methodist University (SMU) could help determine if Saturn’s icy moon – Titan – has ever been home to life long before NASA completes an exploratory visit to its surface by a drone helicopter.

This illustration shows NASA’s Dragonfly rotorcraft-lander approaching a site on Saturn’s moon, Titan. Credits: NASA/JHU-APL

NASA announced in late June that its “Dragonfly” mission would launch toward Saturn’s largest moon in 2026, expecting to arrive in 2034. The goal of the mission is to use a rotorcraft to visit dozens of promising locations on Titan to investigate the chemistry, atmospheric and surface properties that could lead to life.

SMU was awarded a $195,000 grant, also in June, to reproduce what is happening on Titan in a laboratory setting. The project, funded by the Houston-based Welch Foundation, will be led by Tom Runčevski, an assistant professor of chemistry in SMU’s Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences. SMU graduate student Christina McConville was also awarded a fellowship by the Texas Space Grant Consortium to help with the project.

Before the rotorcraft lands on Titan, chemists from SMU will be recreating the conditions on Titan in multiple glass cylinders — each the size of a needle top — so they can learn about what kind of chemical structures could form on Titan’s surface. The knowledge on these structures can ultimately help assess the possibility of life on Titan — whether in the past, present or future.

Scientists have long considered Titan to be very similar to pre-biotic Earth, even though it is a frigid world much farther from the sun than our planet. Titan is the only moon in the solar system to have a dense atmosphere like Earth, and is also the only world other than Earth to have standing bodies of liquids, including lakes, rivers and seas, on its surface. In addition, NASA scientists believe Titan may have a subsurface ocean of water.

“Titan is a hostile place, with lakes and seas of liquid methane, and rains and storms of methane. The storms carry organic molecules produced in the atmosphere to the surface, and at the surface conditions, only methane, ethane and propane are liquids. All other organic molecules are in their solid form – or, as we would call them on Earth, minerals,” Runčevski explained.

“We are interested in the chemical composition and crystal structure of these organic minerals, because it is believed that minerals played a key role in the origins of life on Earth,” he said. “Hence, our research may help assess these possibilities for strange “methanogenic” Titanean life.”

Runčevski added that any information that they get about the structure of Titan’s upper layer crust, which is made of organic minerals, could prove very useful to NASA’s Dragonfly mission.

In order to create these “Titans in a jar” at SMU, Runčevski said they will use information about the conditions on Titan that were obtained during the mission Cassini-Huygens, which ended two years ago.

“We can recreate this world step by step in a cylinder made of glass,” he said. “First, we will introduce water, which freezes into ice. Second, we will top that layer of ice with ethane that liquidizes as a ‘lake.’ Then we will fill the remaining cylinder with nitrogen.”

After that, they can introduce different molecules into the system, mimicking the rainfall. Lastly, they will “dry” the lakes by slightly raising the temperature and produce the surface of the moon. The cylinder that this moon will be created inside is specifically designed, so that multiple state-of-the-art experiments can be done and they can learn from the structure of the real Titan. Large parts of these experiments will be performed at research facilities that provide modern synchrotron and neutron radiation, such as Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois and the National Institute and Technology in Maryland.

Several media outlets have covered the news, including:

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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Inside Higher Ed: The truth about bias response teams is more complex than often thought

DALLAS (SMU) – Are bias response teams political correctness police on college campuses? Or are they a quick fix for dealing with prejudice and bias?

In an opinion piece in Inside Higher Ed, a team of professors, including Southern Methodist University’s S. Kiersten Ferguson, argues that the truth is more complex.

They note that bias response teams — which handle reports of incidents that may involve prejudice from students, faculty or staff — are well-intentioned but often lack sufficient resources and time to carry out their charges. And they often get caught in the middle of demands from two different groups, neither of which they are typically able to fully satisfy.

Read the story here.

EXCERPT:

By Ryan A. Miller, Tonia Guida, Stella Smith, S. Kiersten Ferguson and Elizabeth Medina   

Inside Higher Ed

“University of Michigan brings back the Soviet Union with its bias response team,” the conservative-libertarian website The College Fix announced last spring. Similar headlines have warned that such teams punish free speech and are the latest example of political correctness run amok in higher education.

Claims that bias response teams function as the thought police on campuses are false. The truth about these teams is more complex, and less nefarious, than headlines acknowledge. Through our research, including an article we published in The Review of Higher Education, we’ve sought to understand the purpose and functions of bias response teams from the perspectives of administrators who run them at 19 colleges throughout the nation.

Misconceptions about bias response teams abound. What do these teams generally do? They:

  • Receive reports of incidents that may involve prejudice from students, faculty and staff;
  • Reach out and seek to support those who file reports;
  • Engage those who were the subjects of reports in voluntary, educational conversations; and
  • Monitor trends in the campus climate to inform educational efforts.

They also refer incidents that go beyond the scope of the team’s purview — crucially, those that involve institutional policy violations or criminal acts — to the professionals on the campus who are already designated to handle them, such as student conduct offices or campus police.

What do bias response teams not do? In the vast majority of cases, they do not have the power to discipline or sanction any campus community member. Bias response teams generally adopt a nonregulatory approach. They do not shut down free speech or charge into classrooms to stop offensive statements from faculty members or students. A federal judge in the University of Michigan case brought by Speech First affirmed as much, remarking “The university considers this voluntary and the student has no obligation to come in.”

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.