Officials worry LA isnt ready for the next big quake. “I would be worried about rapidly filling the Salton Sea. 17, 1994, a 6.7 magnitude quake rocked the suburbs north of Los Angeles, leaving 57 dead and causing more than 43 billion in damage. We know that it’s ready to go,” Hill said. This fault has accumulated a lot of tectonic stress.
“If we rapidly fill it, that might stimulate seismicity. For years, plans have been discussed to refill the lake, but the new findings caution that a fast increase in water there may increase the likelihood of an earthquake. Since then, the lake has seen a catastrophic decline as the water evaporated, leaving toxic dust and fish bones on the once sandy beaches. Los Angeles experiences an average of five earthquakes a year with magnitudes between 3 and 4, putting recent quakes within the normal range of size and frequency. In the ’50s and ’60s, it briefly became a vacation destination for Southern California residents, with a yacht club and hotel resort that saw lakeside performances from the Beach Boys and Frank Sinatra. It was formed accidentally, after a canal burst its banks in 1905, redirecting water from the Colorado River to the site of the ancient dry lake bed. “It’s effectively unclamping the fault,” Hill said. When the lake is full, the water acts like air, lifting the puck and letting it slide. Hill used the analogy of a puck on an air hockey table. In summary, the ShakeOut Scenario estimates this earthquake will cause over 1,800 deaths, 50,000 injuries, 200 billion in damage and other losses, and severe. The Salton Sea was once a resort destination before the water evaporated, leaving behind toxic dust. The paper found that six of the past seven major earthquakes in Southern California over the last 1,000 years occurred when the ancient Lake Cahuilla, located where the Salton Sea is now, was either filling or at its fullest. The study, published in Nature this week, reveals that historically, when the body of water over the southern end of the San Andreas Fault is at its largest, the pressure results in a quake. You’re bending the upper crust, and this changes the stress in the area of the fault.”Įarthquakes happen when the stress built up between two tectonic plates - in this case, the North American and Pacific plates - becomes greater than the friction between them. The quake, at 7:01 a.m., was centered near the railyards off Interstate 5 and Interstate 710. Hill, lead author of the study and a doctoral candidate at San Diego State University’s geological sciences department and UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, over the phone. A 3.6 magnitude earthquake was recorded Sunday morning in Los Angeles, the U.S. “It’s the weight of the lake on the Earth’s crust,” said Ryley G. In short, the drying of the Salton Sea in modern times has, for now, reduced pressure on the San Andreas Fault and delayed the “Big One,” which may one day wreak devastation on the Los Angeles basin and its 13 million residents.
0 kommentar(er)
