The Tectonics Observatory (TO) is a multi-disciplinary center at the California Institute of Technology. We aim to understand the behavior and properties of the Earth's surface and underlying layers (the lithosphere), covering topics such as earthquakes and mountain building. See below for news of some of our recent discoveries, or visit our Schools and Public Education pages.

Research Highlights


Under the Hood of the Earthquake Machine - we have developed the first computer model of an earthquake-producing fault segment that reproduces, in a single physical framework, the available observations of both the fault's seismic (fast) and aseismic (slow) behavior. More...


Preliminary Analyses of the 2012 Sumatra Earthquake - We have obtained a picture of the rupture propagation using back-projection of high-frequency seismic waveforms, as well as a slip map by modelling longer-period waveforms. More...



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Recent News


sixth graders 36 eighth graders from Le Lycee tour the TO and Seismo Lab - Graduate student Thomas Ader showed what it is like to work in the highest mountains of the world, Graduate student Marion Thomas gave a presentation (in French!) on Plate Tectonics, Postdoc Katie Snell led activities on how scientists know how tall mountains were in the past, and Postdoc Vito Rubino showed how to make earthquakes in the lab.

John Eiler Kanamori Named Foreign Associate of National Academy of Sciences - Hiroo Kanamori, the John E. and Hazel S. Smits Professor of Geophysics, Emeritus, at Caltech, has been elected one of 21 new foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences. More...

Foo Fighters Did Foo Fighters Show Really Cause Geological Tremors? - Assistant professor Victor Tsai says it isn't that unusual for large gatherings of people to cause such tremors. More...

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Last updated: May 15, 2012 | Contact Us

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