USGS 50 Years in Menlo Park

Earthquake studies to be centered in Menlo

A National Center for Earthquake Research will be established at Menlo Park, only miles from one of the principal objects of study--the San Andreas fault, according to Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall.

The Center will be a division of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

Its creation will accelerate plans for a $7 million building program at the USGS West Coast headquarters at 345 Middlefield Road, although a definite starting date has not been set, George O. Gates, chief of the geologic division, said today.

Udall said the earthquake center is being established to "stimulate and coordinate research on the causes and predictions of earthquakes and on methods of minimizing loss of life and property resulting from earthquake occurrences in populace areas.

The announcement followed by two days a report by Dr. Donald Hornig, director of the U.S. Office of Science and Technology, recommending a 10-year program of earthquake research.

Gates said the new center will tie in with an earthquake prediction study begun by his office last summer. However, other federal and state agencies, universities, industries and nations will participate in the center's studies and exchange of information, he said.

One of the first steps in the program will be relocation of the USGS Branch of Crustal Studies from Denver, Colorado, to Menlo Park. This branch has about 40 staff memebers, Gates said. The move is to be completed by next summer.

Geophysicist L. C. Pakiser, former chief of the crustal studies branch, will head the earthquake center.

Instruments and personnel developed in the crustal branch's studies of underground nuclear testing detection will be of high significance in the earthquake center's work, Gates said.

Studies will be centered in California, Nevada and Alaska.

The San Andreas and Hayward faults in the Bay Area and San Francisco Bay, itself, will be the objects of special studies, Gates said.

One of the first projects will be location of the best testing spots along the faults. Earthquakes generally are believed to be caused by sudden releases of tension built up as land masses on one side of the fault inch along in yet unexplained migrations.

Techniques used by the USGS to anticipate eruptions of Kilauea volcano on the island of Hawaii will be used at the outset of the earthquake studies, Gates said. These instruments include tilt meters and seismographs.

The scientists later hope to develop more sophisticated detection devices. These will be coupled with intensive studies of the reaction of various types of geological rock formations to shock waves and mapping of the distribution of such material.

The USGS owns 16 acres at Menlo Park.

It was selected as the site of the earthquake center because "this is the center of earthquake country in the United States," Gates said, and because of its proximity to universities and its laboratories and libraries.

Palo Alto Times
October 8, 1965

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