USGS 50 Years in Menlo Park

Earthquake Research Center To Be Established at Menlo Park

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.

Its creation will accelerate plans for a $7 million building program at the USGS complex 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 populous areas."

The announcement followed by two days a report by Dr. Donald Hornig, director of the office of science and technology, recommending a 19-year program of 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 studies and exchange of information, he said.

Gates said the earthquake center would study, among other things, the seismic dangers of building on filled land at bayside. Gates said he could not pinpoint where the studies would be made, but that presumable some would be along the San Mateo County shoreline.

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 members, 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 investigation 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 of the fault inch along in yet unexplained migrations.

Redwood City (Calif.) Tribune
October 9, 1965

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