Scientists at UC Berkeley today unveiled an app that would harness user’s smartphones to pick up the vibrations of an earthquake and quickly transmit a warning to people farther away. The app is called MyShake, and you can download it for free from the Android app store here.
The app uses a sensor in smartphones — the same one that tells the phone which way it’s oriented — to pick up shaking unique to earthquakes. Only a magnitude 5 or greater earthquake will trigger the app; it’s designed to ignore the shaking of everyday life. If enough phones within a 60-mile area are triggered, it’s probably a reliable indication of a real earthquake. A computer system can take this data and send warnings to cell phones further afield about the epicenter of the incoming quake.
How much warning time would the app give? Early warning for an earthquakes can be as a short as a few seconds and as long as a 20 or so seconds — but even this could be enough to avoid significant harm. It could give trains crucial time to slow down, tell doctors in the middle of delicate surgery to stop, and quickly open elevator doors so people don’t get trapped.
Early warning systems for earthquakes are nothing new. The US Geological Survey (USGS) developed an early warning system called ShakeAlert in collaboration with West Coast universities (including the UW). The MyShake app isn’t meant to replace the sophisticated seismic stations buried in the ground that already do similar work to detect and warn about earthquakes. But scientists hope the cell phone data could be used to supplement data from the seismic stations, which can be more accurate, but slower than a network of smartphones. An app could also be very useful in a place like Nepal, which has millions of cellphone users but no seismic stations.
If the Android version of the app is successful, an iPhone version might follow. See more information about the app from UC Berkeley’s website here.
