Easter Earthquake Post-Mortem; MIT Reconstructs 2010 Quakes!

It is hardly ever that anyone forgets about the destructive earthquakes that shake the world but it might be the first time that researchers have succeeded in recreating the terrible 7.2-magnitude earthquakes in the year 2010 beneath Baja California deserts which sent tremors up to 40 miles south of the US-Mexico border.

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A view looking southeast along the surface trace of the San Andreas fault in the Carrizo Plain. In this image, a road has been cut going through the fault (from left to right). Image Credit: USGS

The earthquake nicknamed 'Easter earthquake' is popular among the geologist community given that it is the most data rich quake ever occurred and also it may have effect on the 'sleeping' San Andreas Fault. Taking a call on to learn new things and to figure out the pattern in the nature of earthquakes, #-Link-Snipped-# . The San Andreas fault line is infamous for a simple reason that the last quakes in the region dates back to 1600 A.D. and any geological activity creates ripples of suspicion if it will propagate further north wrecking havoc.

Trying to reconstruct the earthquake, Prof. Thomas Herring, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, combined the data obtained from seismic recordings laser altimetry. The team found that contrary to the common belief that an earthquake is most powerful during first few seconds, a much smaller quake happened for duration of 15 seconds before the main quakes. This has lead to some short term effects on the fault line. Herring discovered that although, the quake released stress over certain region, it also increased stress over other regions. The effect of the main quake was to rupture of the two fault lines previously thought inactive.

The MIT team then took help of the post earthquake satellite images along with the GPS data and observed that tremors started 10 Km below earth surface; the point now connecting the two ruptured faults. After the first light tremor occurred, the ruptures spread out to the two faults thus marching towards North and South. The ground based sensors metered the shakes experienced by earth surface and collected the required seismic data.

According to the researchers, the region where all these tectonic activities are taking place is very new; only 5 to 6 million years old. The faults are thus forming in this region. herring believes that Easter tremor may be detrimental in splitting up a seam of the length of California! The results of this tragedy as found out by the MIT researchers might be useful in getting a prior knowledge of upcoming earthquakes. May be we will be in a position of early prediction of quakes by constantly monitoring the tectonic movements and fault lines.

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