The Caltech Effect: Zachary Ross on CS + Geophysics

New areas of research are emerging at Caltech where computer science (CS) and other fields intersect. Caltech’s CS+X initiative supports the development of new paradigms for computation and pushes the boundaries of machine learning and statistics in ways that transform or create entirely new disciplines. Inspired by these possibilities, more than 40 percent of Caltech undergraduate students currently major or minor in computer science.

In this video, assistant professor of geophysics Zachary Ross explains how he uses artificial intelligence to detect micro-earthquakes buried within the noise of large seismic datasets. Small seismic events are important because they fill in the gaps between larger earthquakes to tell a much more complete story about how earthquakes evolve in space and time.

This is one in a suite of five videos produced for the January 2020 issue of Caltech’s campaign e-magazine, The Caltech Effect.

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