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Scientists at Northwestern University in Illinois and the University of Missouri believe that recent earthquakes may have been the aftershocks of earthquakes that occurred hundreds of years ago.
In the journal, Nature, they explain that a new pattern in the frequency of aftershocks could explain some major quakes after finding that echoes of past earthquakes can continue for several hundred years. They hope that further study will help them and other scientists to look for places where the earth is ‘storing up energy for a large future earthquake’.
Californians will be hoping that this is so for they anxiously await the arrival of ‘the big one’ which, despite recent major quakes in that State, has yet to materialise. I do hope so, for I was involved in the January 1994 earthquake in Los Angeles and it was a very unpleasant experience indeed, especially as for weeks afterwards one was waiting for the next aftershock in case it was a fresh earthquake.
Some time afterwards, I lived in the San Gabriel Mountains away from the rush, noise and pollution of LA. Just a couple of miles away from my house was the San Andreas Fault, a great gash in the ground, and I used to take visitors down there to see it.
Perhaps that wasn’t such a good idea. But looking more closely at the frequency of quakes might be.
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Scientists at Northwestern University in Illinois and the University of Missouri believe that recent earthquakes may have been the aftershocks of earthquakes that occurred hundreds of years ago.
In the journal, Nature, they explain that a new pattern in the frequency of aftershocks could explain some major quakes after finding that echoes of past earthquakes can continue for several hundred years. They hope that further study will help them and other scientists to look for places where the earth is ‘storing up energy for a large future earthquake’.
Californians will be hoping that this is so for they anxiously await the arrival of ‘the big one’ which, despite recent major quakes in that State, has yet to materialise. I do hope so, for I was involved in the January 1994 earthquake in Los Angeles and it was a very unpleasant experience indeed, especially as for weeks afterwards one was waiting for the next aftershock in case it was a fresh earthquake.
Some time afterwards, I lived in the San Gabriel Mountains away from the rush, noise and pollution of LA. Just a couple of miles away from my house was the San Andreas Fault, a great gash in the ground, and I used to take visitors down there to see it.
Perhaps that wasn’t such a good idea. But looking more closely at the frequency of quakes might be.
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