A news post on the Nature.com website explains why some scientists believe that southern
California may be due for a major earthquake. The idea is that strain has been building up within the San Andreas Fault system for over 200 years. During that time the strain has been accumulating instead of being released through earthquake activity, "creep" or transfer into other fault systems.
The San Andreas Fault is the boundary between the North American Plate and the Pacific Plate. These plates are moving past one another at a rate of about one inch per year. However, rocks in the fault zone are stuck due to friction. Energy accumulates within the rocks and is released when the rocks rupture and the plates suddenly slip past one another.
Yuri Fialko of Scripps Institution of Oceanography has lead this study, which used radar data from European Space Agency satellites and GPS ground measurements. He estimates that there is enough accumulated energy to produce a magnitude 8.0 earthquake if it is all released in a single event.
Image by USGSRead more about his
Southern California Earthquake Study at Nature.com.
Labels: Earthquakes
