I read an article about how in some areas small earthquakes can't be used to predict a larger one. The article said that intercontinental plates don't follow a single pattern, which changes the way some people think about how to predict earthquakes. The article talks about how plates that scrape along side of each other less than 10 mm per year leave after affects that can last up to 100 years! It also said that continental plates store energy a lot longer than most other plates, so the after affects of this stored energy can either come quickly, where the environment is under a lot of stress, or take a while to be felt where less stress is on the environment. These after shocks are making it a lot harder for scientists to predict the next big earthquakes.
Article link: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/49125/title/Small_earthquakes_may_not_predict_larger_ones
No comments:
Post a Comment