William Spain Seismic Observatory, Fordham University

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The William Spain Seismic Observatory is located in the Bronx, New York at the Rose Hill Campus of Fordham University. Seismic recordings at this location are among the oldest in the nation, and the oldest in the region.

[edit] Early History

Since 1910, when the Rev. Edward P. Tivnan, SJ, installed a seismograph in the basement of the administration building, Fordham has been the site of the oldest seismic station in New York City. William Spain Seismic Observatory has measured much of the world's natural and unnatural trembling, including earthquakes, China's first atomic explosion in 1964, and local subway trains. When Father Tivnan started recording these quakes, vibrations were recorded on a Wiechert seismograph - a pendulum contraption with levers, kerosene-smoked paper and a 180-pound weight balanced on a rod. Fr. Tivnan later served as President of the University (from 1919-1924)

The Wiechert was succeeded by more advanced machines, the latest being a CMG-3TD, a computerized seismometer made by Güralp Systems.

[edit] Modern Activity

The station opened in 1924 and sits at the edge of a wide lawn in the center of campus, next to Freeman Hall, home of the department of physics. It is named in honor of William Spain, a physics student who died in 1922 and whose father donated the money to build the station

For more than 60 years, the observatory's keeper was the Rev. J. Joseph Lynch, an earthquake expert. In the early 1950s, Fr. Lynch conducted seismic tests in Rome to help the Vatican search for the tomb of St. Peter.

Fordham's seismometer is part of a network of similar machines that monitor earthquake activity in the northeastern United States. The network is made up of seismic stations in New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Vermont. It supplies data to a larger national network, the Advanced National Seismic System, operated by the United States Geological Survey.

The Fordham seismometer is one of three in New York City linked to the regional and national networks. The other two are located at a lab in the middle of Central Park and at Queens College.