Keystone Professor Provides Earthquake Expertise

08/24/2011

Dr. Saginor, assistant professor of earth science at Keystone College, monitors the college’s seismic monitoring station, which detects large and small earthquakes all over the world as they occur. Keystone is the only local college to have a seismic monitoring station and the station is one of only a few in Pennsylvania.

Immediately following reports of the earthquake – centered in Mineral, Va. about 90 miles southwest of Washington – reached newsrooms across Northeast Pennsylvania, Dr. Saginor began receiving calls from numerous media outlets.

WBRE and WNEP television stations conducted live interviews with Dr. Saginor, along with several daily and weekly newspapers, including the Scranton Times-Tribune, Wilkes-Barre dailies the Times Leader and Citizens’ Voice, and weeklies Go Lackawanna and the Wyoming County Examiner. The Times-Tribune ran a large page-one graphic showing the earthquake as depicted on the Keystone seismometer. The Citizens’ Voice and Times Leader ran similar graphics and Dr. Saginor was quoted extensively.  

The earthquake, the most powerful East Coast quake in 76 years, rattled structures and frayed nerves from Georgia to Maine. Tremors were noticeable on the Keystone campus and throughout the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area.

“This is not an earthquake you would expect to happen every five years,” Dr. Saginor told the Citizens’ Voice. It’s not a usual occurrence but it doesn’t mean these things can’t happen.”

To learn more about Keystone’s seismic monitoring station, click here.