'Earthquake lady' Dr. Lucy Jones to retire after 33 years at USGS

Seismologist Dr. Lucy Jones, known to many as the “earthquake lady” aounced her retirement from the U.S. Geological Survey in a Friday moing tweet.

“I am retiring from federal service @USGS but will keep my appointment at @Caltech. I’ll be freer to focus on SoCal,” tweeted Jones just before 6:30 a.m. linking to an article to the Los Angeles Times.

A pioneer for women in the science fields, Jones has been a seismologist with the USGS and a visiting research associate at the Seismological Laboratory of Caltech since 1983.

She became the face of the USGS, providing quick and easy-to-understand information about seismic activity to a nervous public.

She famously gave television interviews following the 6.1-magnitude Joshua Tree earthquake in 1992 while holding her sleeping son, Niels.

In 2008, she led a team of 300 scientists and engineers in the Great Southe Califoia ShakeOut to study the likely consequences of a potential magnitude 7.8 earthquake on the southe San Andreas Fault.

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