UNR is one of six universities working with the U.S. Geological Survey to transition their ShakeAlert earthquake early warning system into a production system that would give communities at least limited time to take protective actions before severe shaking waves from an earthquake arrive.

The USGS is providing $3.7 million to the universities to improve the ShakeAlert system’s sensor and telemetry infrastructure across the West Coast.

UNR’s seismic network covers Nevada and California along the Eastern Sierra and Death Valley

The Nevada Seismological Lab, a public service department at UNR, will initially focus on the California portion of its seismic monitoring system near Lake Tahoe and looks to expand the early warning system into Nevada, mostly surrounding the urban areas of Las Vegas, Reno and Carson City.

In addition to the university awards, the USGS has purchased about $1.5 million in new sensor equipment, some of it destined for the Tahoe-Truckee corridor, to expand and improve the ShakeAlert system and awarded about $250,000 in supplements to earlier agreements to three universities. These efforts, as well as internal work that the USGS is conducting, are possible because of $8.2 million in funding to the USGS Earthquake Hazards Program for ShakeAlert approved by Congress earlier this year.