A civil engineering professor at the University of California at Berkeley is working on a novel way of maintaining a building's structural stability after an earthquake or terrorist bomb. The team of researchers working with the professor have designed and tested a system that uses cables for backup support in case main support beams failed. This site is the homepage of the professor leading this...

The California Integrated Seismic Network (CISN) was formed to serve emergency response, engineering, and scientific communities with a better understanding of the earthquakes and mitigation. After learning about CISN's mission and organizational layout, visitors can discover upcoming seminars and other events. At the Earthquake Info link, users can find earthquake maps, felt reports, and data....

The California Institute of Technology Library System and the Earthquake Engineering Research Laboratory provides the Caltech Earthquake Engineering Research Laboratory Technical Reports Web site. Visitors will find access to technical reports by browsing the categorized sets from the Center for Research on the Prevention of Natural Disasters, Dynamics Laboratory, Earthquake Engineering Research...

Civil and structural engineers face a challenging task when designing buildings and other infrastructure. They have to account for a multitude of safety issues related to fire, floods, and natural disasters. That challenge is twofold with the additional risk of terrorism, because blast protection could be a major concern for high-profile structures. California's Golden Gate Bridge is in the...

A national, nonprofit technical society, the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) was founded in 1949 and aims to "reduce earthquake risk by advancing the science and practice of earthquake engineering." EERI's searchable site contains news, timely information, and documents pertaining to earthquakes and related engineering issues. Highlights include the reconnaissance reports with...

The National Information Service for Earthquake Engineering (NISEE) has a huge collection of earthquake data and images for researchers or anyone with a passing interest in these destructive forces. Operated at the University of California, Berkeley, the site has ten "eBooks" that range in topic from introductory earthquake engineering to earthquake risk-reduction measures. A giant database is...

The Open System for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (OpenSees) is a project of the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center. OpenSees is an open source "software framework for developing applications to simulate the performance of structural and geotechnical systems subjected to earthquakes." The project's homepage maintains resources for users and developers, including downloadable source...

The Earthquake Engineering Research Institute and the International Association for Earthquake Engineering have teamed up to create the World Housing Encyclopedia (WHE): a database that provides information about housing construction in parts of the world vulnerable to earthquakes. As of this write-up, this collection includes 130 reports, which visitors can browse via an interactive map on WHE's...