natural hazards

EARTH Magazine: Unlocking the Cascadia Subduction Zone's Secrets: Peering into Recent Research and Findings

Submitted by mmoses on

The Cascadia Subduction Zone is a 1,000-kilometer-long subduction zone stretching from Mendocino, Calif., to north of Vancouver Island off the coast of British Columbia, Canada. A real threat is a potentially devastating magnitude-9 earthquake and the potentially ensuing tsunami — which has happened before and will happen again. But when? And what will happen when this massive fault does start shaking? Scientists have been working diligently over the last couple of decades to answer those questions. A series of recent oceanic research cruises and datasets has steadily advanced our understanding of Cascadia, but there is still much to learn.

EARTH Magazine: Precise to a fault: How GPS revolutionized seismic research

Submitted by mmoses on

Prior to the quake, geoscientists had placed GPS markers in and around the San Francisco area. Immediately after the quake, researchers converged on the area to collect and compare the pre- and post-quake GPS data, which revealed the direction and speed of surface movements, allowing scientists to infer the pattern of slip on the fault plane that had ruptured far underground.

EARTH Magazine: Faking quakes at full scale: Giant shake tables simulate earthquakes to make buildings safer

Submitted by mmoses on

On a muggy day in mid-July 2009, a lone seven-story condominium complex northwest of Kobe, Japan, was violently shaken by an earthquake. Onlookers watched the 23-unit, wood-frame tower sway and bounce while, inside the building, furniture toppled and plates clattered to the floor. No one was hurt during the highly localized event and there was only minimal damage, in part because the building’s wooden skeleton had been augmented to better resist earthquake shaking, but also because the whole event — from the seismicity to the partially furnished building — was just a test.

Pages

Subscribe to RSS - natural hazards