Scans find ruptures, and that may help experts prepare for hazards in the future
Article Source: msnbc.com
from:msnbc.com3-D images show earthquakes before and after activity
Seeded on Thu Feb 9, 2012 4:40 PM EST (msnbc.com)
- msnbc.com sites & shows:
- TODAY
- Rock Center
- Nightly News
- Meet the Press
- Dateline
- Morning Joe
- Hardball
- Ed
- Maddow
- Last Word
- msnbc tv
Leave a Comment:
Learn to swim.:
.
Wish that would help; but, unfortunately even the Great Lakes has a fault and the East Coast, etc.. At least CA has homes built to withstand a certain force; but, what happens to those on the East coast that never had those regulations. They say, if and when one strikes, the east coast will lose A LOT of people. This might draw some needed attention to the rest of the nation.
:Learn to swim:
Tectonic plate movement is something I find very interesting. It what's behind Earthquakes. I think new scanning tech could become extremely useful in predicting earthquakes. Tracking micro movements of the plates over large areas, and then comparing those movements to earthquake locations, could very well lead to a method for predicting them. Imagine the lives it could save. Japan sure could have used a warning. So could Indonesia.
I agree. Unfortunately, I have to wonder how accurate or timely these warnings will be. Will there be a matter of hours, or minutes, or would we be able to evacuate a city days in advance? Sure, we'd have the tech to predict the earthquakes, but the question is whether we'd have time to make use of the information.
I'd say when seconds even help, minutes would be greatly appreciated by those affected.
We are only beginning to develope the technology to understand the complexity of how the earth moves. There is far more that we don't know than what we do know.
You don't know that
Any warning is better than none. I awed by nature and have always been. That we are now talking about maybe being able to predict is wonderous to me.
Good Stuff! I imagine 1 day developers will be banned from constructing buildings on faults; but, until then, this will help. Hope they get around to the East coast and other fault areas, too....make us all safer!
Fascinating. I'm most interested in earthquake predicition having grown up in the Northern Cal Bay Area.. Since I was 15 years old I've been able to sense when earthquakes are about to happen but I simply cannot know WHERE they will happen. Among other things, I get very distinct ear tones prior to quakes. I believe this is the sound made when the tectonic plates shift just prior to the actual quake. My window is 1 to 7 days 95% of the time after an ear tone. This has been happening to me for 30 years!! I really hope that we are close to a clear and reliable method, like a weather map, of predicting a geographic, 7-day window quake cast!! Wouldn't that be amazing? I've often dreamt about creating a phone and online APP for earthquake alerts. Wouldn't that be incredible? But it has to be scientificaly substantiated first. I would like to see a more collaborative effort in this research that also involves people like myself. There are many ways to observe nature and know that an earthquake is about to happen. But the devil is in the details of scientific fact. I believe that looking at all areas of equake research will lead to a real advance in prediction more quickly than isolated research alone.