Winners of College of Science Poster Competition

Second Place Michelle Heimgartner's Poster:

The Great Basin, a highly active geothermal region, supplies 9% of northern Nevada's total energy. In order to assess the geothermal potential within the Great Basin, we have completed three approx. 600-km-long seismic refraction transects to measure crustal thickness. Crustal thickness provides valuable regional-scale information: if the crust is thin, the mantle is closer to the surface, heat flow can be higher, and the geothermal potential may be better. In addition, crustal thickness when combined with temperature gradient, gravity, fault, and strain rate measurements, can allow us to better understand the relationships that control geothermal activity.

Poster link (JPEG, 4.8MB)


Third Place Aasha Pancha's Poster:

The cities of Reno and Sparks, Nevada, are located in a basin about 13 kilometers (8 miles) wide and 21 kilometers (13 miles) long. Ground motions from an Mw=4.4 earthquake, 22 kilometers west of Truckee, California, were recorded by instruments located in and around the basin. Ground motions on the soft sediment in the basin were greater than on rock sites in the surrounding hills. A computer model of the shaking was compared to the recorded data to help us understand how accurately we can predict ground motion from earthquakes. Since the computer model got the strength of shaking about right, we can use it to estimate ground shaking in Reno/Sparks during larger earthquakes.

Poster link (PDF, 4.9MB)