Geology Lecture: 25,000 Feet under the Sea – Taking the Temperature of the 2011 Mw9.0 Tohoku-Oki Earthquake Fault , Jan. 16

Southwestern Oregon Community College’s Geology Lecture Series continues with the 10th Annual Cascadia Anniversary Earthquake Lecture on Saturday, January 17, 2015 with a special 2:00 pm start time. Dr. Patrick Fulton (University of California Santa Cruz/Consortium for Ocean Leadership Distinguished Lecturer for Integrated Ocean Drilling Program) will present “25,000 Feet Under the Sea: Taking the Temperature of the 2011 Mw9.0 Tohoku-Oki Earthquake Fault”. This free lecture is at the Hales Center for the Performing Arts on Southwestern’s Coos Bay campus and is open to all members of the community. Dr. Fulton’s lecture will highlight the Japan Trench Fast Drilling Project (JFAST) that was organized to investigate the Tohoku-Oki earthquake’s fault zone and the conditions that permitted a large slip to the trench. He will also discuss the deep sea drilling vessel, Chikyu, which successfully installed a borehole temperature observatory across the plate boundary fault 16 months after the earthquake. The data collected through these projects, along with fault zone core samples and geophysical logging, are providing new insight into the mechanics of fault zones and large tsunami producing earthquakes. Dr. Fulton was a shipboard observatory scientist on Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) Expeditions 343 and 343T as well as a physical properties specialist on IODP Expedition 330. He is currently a Consortium for Ocean Leadership Distinguished Lecturer for IODP. Dr. Fulton earned his Associate of Science at Young Harris College, Bachelor of Science at Georgia Tech and a PhD from Penn State University followed by postdoctoral research at Oregon State University and University of Texas, Austin. He is extensively published in leading Scientific Journals and recently received the Jason Morgan Early Career Award from the American Geophysical Union. Dr. Fulton currently serves as assistant researcher at the University of California Santa Cruz where he focuses on the physics of earthquakes and processes acting within fault zones. All of the talks in the series are free and are held in the Hales Center for the Performing Arts on Southwestern’s Coos Bay Campus, 1988 Newmark Ave., Coos Bay. For those not able to attend in person, all lectures are Livestreamed and archived, with access from the College web site at www.socc.edu. Continuing sponsors of the lecture series include the SWOCC Foundation and the College.   This lecture is co-sponsored by the Consortium for Ocean Leadership Distinguished Lecturer Program for the IODP. Additional talks scheduled this year, all starting at 7:00 pm, include: Dr. David Jewitt (University of California, Los Angeles) on March 7, 2015 with “Death from Space”; Dr. Joel Pederson (Utah State University) on Saturday, April 18, 2015 on “New Approaches for Dating Rock Art, Addressing a Hot Archaeological Debate with Cool Geology” and Dr. David Montgomery (University of Washington) on May 16, 2015 with “The Rocks Don’t Lie: A Geologist Investigates Noah’s Flood”. For additional information contact Ron Metzger at 541-888-7216.