I am always very careful about any information I see regarding the prediction of earthquakes. I passed up the opportunity to feature a YouTube video someone sent me the other day in which a former US Geological Survey scientist predicted a major California earthquake this month. I wanted to avoid the natural temptation to hype California fears on the heels of the 9.0 Japanese earthquake and tsunami earlier this month.
However, today I read an article in Newsweek by Simon Winchester (geologist and journalist) titled the Scariest Earthquake Is Yet to Come. In this article he talks about the link among the magnitude-8.8 Chile earthquake of 2010, the New Zealand Earthquake of February 2011, the 9.0 Japanese earthquake of 2011 and a potential future earthquake along the California San Adreas fault. He says speaking of the recent 9.0 Japanese earthquake and tsunami:
"Even more worrisome than geography and topography, though, is geological history. For this event [Japanese earthquake] cannot be viewed in isolation. There was a horrifically destructive Pacific earthquake in New Zealand on Feb. 22, and an even more violent magnitude-8.8 event in Chile almost exactly a year before. All three phenomena involved more or less the same family of circum-Pacific fault lines and plate boundaries—and though there is still no hard scientific evidence to explain why, there is little doubt now that earthquakes do tend to occur in clusters: a significant event on one side of a major tectonic plate is often—not invariably, but often enough to be noticeable—followed some weeks or months later by another on the plate’s far side. It is as though the earth becomes like a great brass bell, which when struck by an enormous hammer blow on one side sets to vibrating and ringing from all over. Now there have been catastrophic events at three corners of the Pacific Plate—one in the northwest, on Friday; one in the southwest, last month; one in the southeast, last year.
That leaves just one corner unaffected—the northeast. And the fault line in the northeast of the Pacific Plate is the San Andreas Fault, underpinning the city of San Francisco.
All of which makes the geological community very apprehensive. All know that the San Andreas Fault is due to rupture one day—it last did so in 1906, and strains have built beneath it to a barely tolerable level. To rupture again, with unimaginable consequences for the millions who live above it, some triggering event has to occur. Now three events have occurred that might all be regarded as triggering events. There are in consequence a lot of thoughtful people in the American West who are very nervous indeed—wondering, as they often must do, whether the consent that permits them to inhabit so pleasant a place might be about to be withdrawn, sooner than they have supposed."
Though no warning or prediction is a reason for panic, it seems that there may indeed be good reason for Californians to make sure that they have an earthquake emergency kit at the ready and make other preparations in case of a major earthquake.
Every Life Secure
