Young scientists detect quake in class
Wednesday May 14 2008
The earthquake that claimed thousands of lives in China this week was picked up in a Co Wicklow school.
A seismometer, which measures and records motions of the ground, detected the powerful tremor at a distance of more than 5,000 miles.
The 380-pupil Scoil Chonglais, Baltinglass, is the first Irish school to have such a device, thanks to a pioneering initiative to bring real-life science into the classroom.
Activity
A text alert to Physics teacher Stephen Gammell within 30 minutes of the earthquake prompted him to check activity on the seismometer, which he set up in the school only last Thursday
"It was 8am. I went down and checked the seismometer and I could see it pick up the earthquake," said Mr Gammell.
The alert came from Tom Blake of the Geophysics Section, School of Cosmic Physics at the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies (DIAS) -- the national contact person for such information as part of the international "rapid response" agreed after the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami.
The rapid response is co-ordinated at a university in Germany and "three or four minutes after a quake of a certain magnitude, I get a text alert and I send it on," explained Mr Blake.
60,000 missing as quake toll rises. Page 32
- Katherine Donnelly
