Earthquake-detecting smartphone app’s early warning network

Although the app is now set up only to detect vibrations and send the data to researchers, some day it could also be used to alert users of an quake happening or on the way. The Android app is now available for download at the Play Store. If it detects earthquake-like behavior, it then sends data about the shaking and the Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates of the phone to the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory.

Smartphone technology is shaking up quake research with a new app that might soon connect millions of users around the world to create an early-warning network.

The app could be the most useful in location that experience traditional seismic events, but the creators are positive MyShake could also be life-saving in countries with no seismic network.

Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, realised this potential and have developed an app that can differentiate the regular movements caused by walking from those caused by the Earth’s movements. It uses a phone’s accelerometer instead and does so in a battery-friendly way, thanks to some help from Deutsche Telekom.

It’s important to note that smartphone sensors are no match for in-ground seismometers, and they aren’t able to pick up on minor shaking. And what these accelerometers lack in sensitivity, they make up for in ubiquity. “There are 16 million smartphones in California alone”. That’s not much use for the detecting smartphone, but it can pass the message on to other people faster than the quake can travel. “Combined with other reports from phones nearby, the scientists have shown that they can automatically alert other phones within the earthquake’s impending path – all within less than a second – notifying people as to the magnitude of the quake and how many seconds they have until it hits”, according to Popular Mechanics.

“We need at least 300 smartphones within a 110-kilometer-by-110-kilometer area in order to have a reasonable estimate of the location, magnitude and origin time of an quake”, Kong said.

Some data sharing takes place between Canada and the United States, but so far no conclusions have been reached over what a region-wide warning system might look like. But a new one developed by UC Berkeley does more than just receive data from external sources: it aims to turn your phone itself into an natural disaster detector.

The end goal is to develop the technology into a global, seismic-detection system that provides advance warning to the public and to emergency personnel about the speed, direction, power and arrival time of an incoming natural disaster. “But if we also have mobile phone data, maybe we would need only one station to trigger before issuing an alert”, affirmed Allen. A widespread system of sensors could allow trains to slow, elevators to stop and surgeons to halt operations seconds before the rumbling of a strong quake.