3D printed models provide clearer understanding of ground motion
Credit: Sunyoung Park It seems like a smooth slab of stainless steel, but look a little closer, and you'll see a simplified cross-section of the Los Angeles sedimentary basin. Caltech researcher Sunyoung Park and her colleagues are printing 3D models like the metal Los Angeles proxy to provide a novel platform for seismic experiments. By printing a model that replicates a basin's edge or the rise and fall of a topographic feature and directing laser light at it, Park can simulate and record how seismic waves might pass through the real Earth. In her presentation at the Seismological Society ...