SCIENTISTS SEEK JUMP ON QUAKES

Mitchell Withers hopes to get a jump on New Madrid Fault earthquakes thanks to computer technology and radio and microwave signals that can provide a few seconds notice of an impending quake in the region.Withers, seismic networks director for the Center for Earthquake Research and Information at the University of Memphis, helped install new computer software at Southeast Missouri State University Tuesday as part of the Integrated Seismic Instrumentation System or ISIS.The system has 84 quake-monitoring stations scattered throughout parts of Missouri, Tennessee and Arkansas, stretching from Memphis to St. Louis. Within 30 seconds after a significant quake of 3.0 or higher, Withers and others can be automatically paged."The goal is to get it faster," said Withers as a monitor in a room in Rhodes Hall of Science at Southeast displayed the up-and-down lines of normal vibration in the ground at several monitoring stations.Withers said the ultimate goal is to provide communities with enough warning to turn off sensitive equipment and perhaps save lives."We're not there yet," said Withers, who hopes future improvements could get the notification time down to a scant 15 seconds within the next few years.The amount of warning depends in part on how far a community is from the center of the quake. "The farther away, the more warning you get," he said."I personally feel it is a better use of resources to focus on early warning rather than prediction," he said.The system is based on the fact that radio waves travel faster than seismic waves. The difference could be as much as 40 seconds in areas of the region farthest from the center of the quake.Federal funding has helped pay for the monitoring equipment. The system also makes use of radio-station towers to help transmit the recorded vibrations along the fault.Most of the automated monitoring equipment has been installed on farms and other isolated land.Gregory Steiner, ISIS designer at the earthquake center in Memphis, said the ground is constantly vibrating, partly from the activities of man. "There is no such thing as solid ground," he said.Placing monitoring stations primarily in rural areas makes sense, he said. "If you are listening for a whisper, you don't go to Grand Central Station to look for it," Steiner said.

STATION SITES

There are five monitoring stations in the Cape Girardeau area, including one at Southeast Missouri State University, one in the Shawnee National Forest in Illinois, one west of Cape Girardeau and two in the Benton Hills area.