An interest in earthquake engineering and seismic monitoring has led CQU Adjunct Research Fellow Mike Turnbull to join a select group of seismologists who will participate in a seismic data management workshop in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in October this year.

Mr Turnbull is a research worker at CQU Gladstone's Process Engineering and Light Metals centre (PELM) and was recently awarded a full scholarship to attend the exclusive event.

Funding was provided by the US National Science Foundation, the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), and the New Zealand Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences (GNS Science).

Mike will attend the workshop organised by the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS) in October on a full-paid scholarship. Only 25 people have been invited to participate in the workshop.

Mr Turnbull is now based at CQU Gladstone but commutes back to his former campus area of Bundaberg on a regular basis.

Mike Turnbull has been awarded a full scholarship to join a select group of seismologists in Kuala Lumpur in October to participate in a seismic data management workshop.

"I'm excited and honoured to have been chosen to attend the Kuala Lumpur workshop. It will give me a chance to meet and work with seismologists from around the Asian region, and learn advanced skills in management and analysis of seismic data," said Mr Turnbull.

IRIS is an international organisation which provides worldwide storage for data on seismic activity around the world.  It also organises workshops in Europe and Asia for educational and training purposes.

Mike has been involved in the monitoring of seismic activity along the Queensland coast for 11 years and has established monitoring stations in the Kolan, Gayndah and Miriam Vale Shires. He leads the Central Queensland Seismology Research Group at CQU.

Mike's current tasking at PELM is as a research assistant in the flow modelling laboratory at Gladstone, however in the near future he aims to incorporate his passion for seismology with his PELM work.

"Currently we can detect earthquake activity along the coastal strip of Queensland but we lack knowledge about activity that happens further west because we don't have the ability to monitor seismic activity in the west that is at the lower end of the Richter Scale, those between a magnitude of 0.5 and 2.

"Because of the coal and gas mining that takes place in the western areas of Queensland and the possible impact this may have on the geological stability in those areas, we need to look at gathering some base data on the natural seismic activity.
Photo 2: Images of seismic activity experienced in the Kingaroy region on the 25/8/2007 at 16:05pm. This earthquake was measured at 4.1 on the Richter Scale.

Mr Turnbull said that this type of research was of great interest to him, and very important for the Central Queensland mining industry. However it will have to wait until after he returns from the conference in Kuala Lumpur in October.