But if silent slip has been relieving
stress along these faults without scientists realizing it, then the degree of danger may actually be less than they think.
Not exact matches
One can think of these cultural definitions as fissures which, when subjected to
stress, become major
fault lines
along which changes in religion take place.
To study these deep
stresses, scientists installed the San Andreas
Fault Observatory at Depth: a borehole drilled two miles deep into the
fault,
along with an underground seismic monitoring station.
Most typical earthquakes happen
along faults that have built - in brakes: motion stops once the
stress is relieved between the two chunks of earth that are trying to move past each other.
Some geophysicists considered this strategy as a way to relieve
stress along California's infamous San Andreas
fault, but they ultimately abandoned the idea for fear that it would create more problems than it would solve.
The hole, near Parkfield, sits at the border between a quiet part of the
fault that creeps
along smoothly without producing quakes and a more dangerous patch that tends to fracture under
stress and produce quakes.
Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory have developed a two - dimensional tabletop simulator that models the buildup and release of
stress along an artificial
fault.
In this image, the simulator is viewed through a polarized camera lens, photo - elastic plates reveal discrete points of
stress buildup
along both sides of the modeled
fault as the far (upper) plate is moved laterally
along the
fault.
In a paper calculating new Chinese earthquake risks in Geophysical Research Letters, a team led by Japanese and American geophysicists analyzed shifts in
stress along several
faults around the area where a magnitude 7.9 temblor killed nearly 70,000 people and drew rare citizen protests because so many schools crumbled.
For decades, geologists have stated that there will be a very large earthquake in the state because there is a lot of
stress building
along the
fault lines.