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Slow fault movements may indicate impending earthquake: study

Xinhua, April 5, 2016 Adjust font size:

Scientists from Nanyang Technological University (NTU) at its Earth Observatory of Singapore (EOS) have discovered a way to forecast earthquakes based on slow fault movements caused by moving sub layers of the earth, announced NTU in a press release on Tuesday.

NTU scientists found that slow fault movements or small vibrations not only potentially point to an impending earthquake, and there is also a discernible pattern to them.

The findings are different from what scientists have thought so far. Scientists believe that larger earthquakes are unlikely to occur following tremors or small-scale earthquakes that are caused by small vibrations or slow fault movements such as those observed in the area of Parkfield along the San Andreas Fault in California, the United States.

Sylvain Barbot, assistant professor at NTU's Asian School of the Environment and earth scientist at EOS, said the discovery defied understanding of how faults accumulate and release stress over time. These vibration patterns are caused by alternating slow and fast ruptures occurring on the same patch of a fault.

"If only slow movements are detected, it does not mean that a large earthquake cannot happen there. On the contrary, the same area of the fault can rupture in a catastrophic earthquake," he added.

Seismic hazards in the Southeast Asia region will probably come from an impending large earthquake in the Mentawai seismic gap in Sumatra, Indonesia, which is a current area of active monitoring and investigation.

EOS scientists previously pointed out a large earthquake may occur any time in this area southwest of Padang, the only place along a large fault where a big earthquake has not occurred in the past two centuries.

NTU said the team's latest findings could potentially be applied in the seismic monitoring of the area to help better forecast large earthquakes in the region.

The findings were published in Nature, one of the most prestigious scientific journals in the world. Enditem