Earthquake simulation on the southern San Andreas Fault
Visualization from Terashake Visualization at the San Diego Supercomputer Center.
Visualization by Amit Chourasia, Steve Cutchin - Visualization Services, SDSC.
Simulations from SCEC and SDSC.
Modified by Earthguide at Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
Visualization by Amit Chourasia, Steve Cutchin - Visualization Services, SDSC.
Simulations from SCEC and SDSC.
Modified by Earthguide at Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
Notes
- Even though areas along southern San Andreas seem less prone to earthquakes than further north, such as Los Angeles, it's the southern San Andreas that's been stuck and hasn't moved since 1690. According to SCEC, "the accumulated slip may amount to as much as six meters, setting the stage for an earthquake that could be as large as magnitude 7.7."
- These simulations show how the ground is expected to vibrate if an earthquake occurs.
Questions for thought
- If the Earth were perfectly homogenous and flat, made of just one kind of material with no imperfections such as cracks, the waves of an earthquake might radiate outward from an epicenter, like ripples moving outward when a stone falls into a still pond. Those ripples are just the surface disturbance of what is really a three-dimensional disturbance that expands as a half-sphere into the water or Earth.
The three-dimensional simulation shows the expanding "half-sphere." Why is the expanding disturbance not perfectly spherical or smooth in the simulation?
The imperfections and deviations from the perfect sphere are the big ticket results we want to know. Where is the disturbance going to be abnormally concentrated or unexpectedly low?
Related resources
-
TeraShake 2 Fault Region
More informatin about TeraShake project from the scientists.
Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC)
-
Terashake Visualization
"The TeraShake simulations modeled the earth shaking that would rattle Southern California if a 230 kilometer section of the San Andreas fault ruptured producing a magnitude 7.7 earthquake. Two rupture scenarios were simulated, one rupturing from north to south, beginning near Wrightwood, California, and a second one rupturing from south to north, starting near Bombay Beach, California."
Visualization Services, San Diego Supercomputer Center
-
Report: San Andreas Fault Due for 'Big One'
Interview with SIO scientist Yuri Fialko on the NPR radio show All Things Considered" with host Robert Siegel on June 21, 2006.
NPR
-
Fialko, Y., Interseismic strain accumulation and the earthquake potential on the southern San Andreas fault system, Nature, 441, doi:10.1038/nature04797, 968-971, 2006