Researchers need your help to study seismic risks in Seattle, Tacoma



SEATTLE -- Seismologists want to better understand earthquake risks in Seattle and Tacoma, but they need the public to help out.

The Pacific Northwest Seismic Network says Seattle is sitting on a basin of land that could worsen the shaking during an earthquake because the basic could capture or reflect some of the shockwaves.

The problem: We don't know the exact dimensions of that basin, and that makes it hard to predict where the problem zones will be.

Researchers are asking the public to let them set up small stations on their property to monitor shaking and help to determine the basin's shape.

"When we have many stations throughout the region, we can sort of make a cat scan of the ground underneath and understand what is the structure of the basin, how sharp are the edges," said Alex Hutko, a research scientist at Pacific Northwest Seismic Network.

If you'd like to help out, click here for more information.