Parkfield Shake Table
Photo taken from a kite-lofted camera, showing the shake table in context of the small town of Parkfield, CA.
Kiwi artist D.V. Rogers salvaged an unused shake table from a Sydney Museum, but not because he wanted to simulate ground motions to verify the seismic performance of structures. Instead, he turned it into a time-based and temporary earthwork that shakes in response to seismic waves from California earthquakes.
The shake table is hooked up to the U.S. Geological Survey’s earthquake monitoring network via satellite internet, and is triggered in near real-time following reported quakes of Magnitude .1 and greater. 10-foot steel rods attached to the table “oscillate and resonate, reflecting the dynamic nature of the Californian landscape,” according to the artist. “The piece is a 21st century expansion and interpretation of the land based art movement that began on the West Coast USA in the in the early 1970s.”
The art piece is installed in a 75 ft. x 30 ft. excavated trench in Parkfield, California, population 50. Parkfield is situated right on top of the San Andreas Fault, midway between San Francisco and Los Angeles. The small, remote township is known as the “earthquake capital of California” due to the large number of repeating Magnitude 6 - 6.5 earthquakes that have occurred over the past 150-years.
Looking straight up from the center of the Shake Table (top) and two close-up, nighttime shots showing the hydraulic actuators that create vertical movement on the shake table. The photo on the left is an 8.5-minute exposure taken on a moonless night with a blue-gel’d flashlight to fill in the top of the shake table. The photo on the right is a 30-second exposure with the fluorescent lights underneath the table switched on for a split second.
The conceptual basis behind the earthwork is to bring all seismic events to a hypothetical epicentre, providing a feedback loop between California quakes and a physical and mechanical representation of the events. USGS seismologist Andy Michael comments, “David’s art installation brings the earthquakes that happen under California every day to the surface and makes them visible for all to see. His work has the potential to give viewers a deeper appreciation for how the earth works and why they need to accept and prepare for the inevitable large and damaging earthquakes. As scientists we can tell people about earthquakes and show graphs, but not everyone learns in the same way.”
Photos by Scott Haefner, USGS.
Further Reading
- Artist D.V. Rogers’ project blog
- Make Magazine -- Volume 16: Shake-O-Rama
- The Parkfield, California Earthquake Experiment
- USGS shake table web page