TOPIC: Earthquakes — Alot of Shaking Going On

SPEAKER:  Kenneth Taylor, North Carolina Geological Survey; N.C. Department of Environmental Quality (NC DEQ)

Travel over several of time in the eastern half of our country to see the number and severity of earthquakes in the Eastern and Central Part of the US.

BIOGRAPHY

Born in North Carolina — Interest in earthquakes began after the 1971 San Fernando in California. I did not feel an earthquake personally until many years later.

In 1971, I lived at Fort Bragg in North Carolina.  That year, the San Fernando earthquake in California got me excited.  I am a seismologist / geophysicist / geologist.  When I went to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, I was the Teaching Assistant (TA) for the geophysics professor — Dr. Christine Powell (as an undergraduate).

After getting my undergraduate degree in geology, I went to the University of South Carolina in Columbia.  With my M.S. I got a job at Teledyne-Geotech in Dallas, Texas as a research geophysicist.  Teledyne-Geotech made the most advanced borehole seismometers in the world.  We even recorded a volcanic eruption in Mexico with sensors that were hundreds of miles from the volcano.

After a few years at T- G, I moved with my wife to St. Louis to complete my doctorate in geophysics.  I chased earthquakes across the Midwest as well as recording seismic events in the Arctic Circle.  The team I was part of during the second summer in the high artic recorded the last soviet underground nuclear test.

I got a Congressional Science Fellowship after completing my Doctorate.  I spent that year in the Washington area as worked for Senator Harry Reid.

After that, I came back to North Carolina and lived in Asheville, and Wake County working for the State Government ever since.