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I get alerts as soon as there’s an earthquake. Part of me is thinking, “please don’t let anyone be injured”. The other part is, “wow, let’s have a look at why it happened and whether we can use it to learn more about the Earth and it’s hidden past”. The truth is that most earthquakes don’t result in loss of human life. Also, these earthquakes tend to be difficult for seismologists to analyse anyway.

The earthquakes I use are from SE Asia and I look at the energy that arrives at seismic stations in North America. The great thing is: I can comfortably download the earthquake data from the internet, even while chilling out on my sofa! I use the data so I can create images of what lies 1000s of km (1000000 meters) beneath our feet, in the depths of the Earth. Luckily the methods I use are similar to those that create the X-ray or CAT scans that you might get in a hospital, so are standard imaging techniques.

I generally look for old ocean floors (subducted slabs) and in my recent work I have found oceanic rock that could be from 80 million years ago. Now that’s pretty old! These old rocks are important because they help us understand plate tectonics, today and in the past, and also how convection in the Earth is connected to the changing world on the surface.

Things I do in a day:

* check for earthquakes
* download earthquake data
* check data for signs of seismic echos and locate where the echos come from.
* make some models of the Earth
* drink tea
* write my thesis
* avoid writing my thesis
* write computer programs (I prefer this kind of writing!)
* plot my results on charts/maps ready for interpetation
* create movies showing my results in 3D
* read some published articles by some amazing scientists (geolebreties)
* drink tea
* check twitter
* meet with other nerdy scientists to chat about what is going on deep in the Earth (in the mantle) and even deeper in the Earth (in the core)
* teach BSc/MSc students
* drink tea