Earthquakes can lead to more earthquakes, scientists suggest

[Auggie]

San Francisco Chronicle / Tuesday, March 2, 2010

The deadly earthquake that struck in Chile on Saturday was probably due to stresses built up deep in the Earth's crust by the largest recorded temblor ever recorded in the same coastal nation 50 years ago, scientists proposed Monday as an explanation for the most recent devastating event.

<snip>

Ross S. Stein, a research geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, and Jian Lin, a geologist from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod, are conferring about the latest Chile quake in Stein's office this week, and in interviews Monday they discussed the concept they call "stress triggering."

<snip>

Still another example of "stress transfer," Stein said, was the powerful Landers quake of 1992 with a magnitude of 7.3 that shook all of Southern California. Only three hours later, stress within that fault caused the Big Bear quake 22 miles away, and seven years later set off the larger Hector Mine quake with a magnitude of 7.1 in the Mojave Desert east of Barstow.

<snip>

"Whenever an earthquake strikes," Stein said, "the probabilities of another quake are higher. Like aftershocks, they never disappear. But our hypothesis of stress transfer triggering quakes is still being hotly debated; it will take a lot more science to prove it."

FULL STORY: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/03/02/MNHV1C98GG.DTL

Apologies if this was posted a day earlier. This is a theory I always considered highly plausible. To hear it described as "debatable" only underscores the complexity of plate tectonics.

In any regard, I'm refreshing the earthquake kit.

[ixion]

1. Every action has a same and opposite reaction

it seems pretty clear to me that a quake in one area could potentially trigger quakes in others.

[XemaSab]

2. I wasn't aware that this was controversial

It seems like common sense that the release of stress at one point on a fault could result in stress buildup on another point on the fault. :shrug:

[HereSince1628]

3. Yes, common sensical, but the matrix of the earth's crust is quite complex

Consequently its composition, thickness, depth, the dominant thrust of plates, the nature of the networking of faults, the materials that border the fault, etc etc all contribute to the manner in which deformation may take place following any given forces that work on the crust.

[Auggie]

5. Well put

Thanks

[Auggie]

4. I'll leave it to the seismologists to figure out...

The fact that there's a possibility plus the news yesterday that the Earth's axis was sent askew is mind-boggling stuff.