EACH DAY THE ODDS ARE GOOD THAT somewhere in the world an earthquake of magnitude 5 or larger will occur. And it’s also likely that students at North Carolina Central University will be among the first to learn about the event.
A seismic recording station on NCCU’s campus is linked to the Center for Earthquake Research and Information at the University of Memphis and monitored by students and faculty in NCCU’s Department of Environmental, Earth and Geospatial Sciences (EEGS). The station detects earthquakes above magnitude 5 that happen anywhere around the world, and many smaller tremors closer to home. “The interior of North American plate is currently really active with many small to moderate earthquakes, said Gordana Vlahovic, Ph.D., chair of the EEGS department, which was formed in 2005 by the merger of Department of Geography with Environmental Science program. “Moreover, historically, three of the largest earthquakes ever recorded in the United States happened along the New Madrid Seismic Zone in Missouri. In contrast to earthquakes in California or Alaska, these earthquakes occurring in the stable continental areas are not readily explained by plate tectonics theory.” Learning more about earthquakes, particularly the potential for a strong earthquake in the eastern U.S., is part of
the work carried out in the Mary Townes Science Complex at NCCU by students working on their masters’ degrees in Earth Science. The goal of the Earth Sciences program is to teach skills and methods that are used in analyzing and understanding the Earth’s physical properties and environment and how human activities alter those conditions – a field of science that is quickly growing. According
(Right) Graduate student Cortney Cameron has a National Science Foundation Fellowship to study earth science at NCCU. (Top Right) Earth Science students Nicolle Martin, Cortney Cameron and post-doctoral fellow Enrico Brandmayr evaluate data from earthquakes in the southeast.
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NCCU NOW SUMMER 2016
to the U.S. Department of Labor Statistics, the country will have 150,000 vacant earth science-related jobs by 2020 as we strive to manage the planet’s increasingly complex environment. All students in the EEGS undergraduate program earn the same B.S. degree – in Environmental and Geospatial Science – but with three concentrations to choose from: environmental science, geoscience or environmental health.