Victor, PhD candidate in Geology at the University of Pretoria, has evolved his MSc thesis to dive deeper into the understanding and modelling of seismic behaviour. He is currently using MATLAB code to evaluate earthquake recurrence parameters and develop seismic hazard maps of the East Coast of South Africa.
The east coast is an area that is characterised by moderate levels of seismicity with several earthquake epicentres located along the KwaZulu-Natal coastal faults. A comprehensive seismic hazard analysis and understanding of seismicity helps mitigate against loss of lives and destruction of infrastructure in the event of a strong earthquake occurring.
Findings of seismic hazard analysis are of high value to decision makers for disaster mitigation and land use planning, the insurance industry as well as the engineering community concerned with seismic design codes.
The need for reliable computational software that allow researchers to focus on their domain problems, without requiring heavy time investment in understanding the software, is imperative. This is why Victor has chosen MATLAB for his research, going on to say; “MATLAB allows us to implement and test algorithms effortlessly along with efficient methods to debug code. It is also an environment that permits us to interactively work with data, while keeping track of files and variables.”
“MATLAB allows us to implement and test algorithms effortlessly and it is easy to debug.”
– Victor P. Mapuranga, PhD Geology Candidate (University of Pretoria)
