Latest Earthquake Stories

Researchers have shown that, by using global positioning systems (GPS) to measure ground deformation caused by a large underwater earthquake, they can provide accurate warning of the resulting tsunami in just a few minutes after the earthquake onset. For the devastating Japan 2011 event, the team reveals that the analysis of the GPS data and issue of a detailed tsunami alert would have taken no more than three minutes. The results are published on 17 May in Natural Hazards and Earth System...

Identifying Natural Hazards Is Only a Part of What the Field Should Do, Analysis Suggests, and Effective Disaster Risk Reduction Strategies Integrate Many Different Experts on Community Level WASHINGTON, May 16, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Earthquakes, tsunamis, and other natural disasters often showcase the worst in human suffering - especially when those disasters strike populations who live in rapidly growing communities in the developing world with poorly enforced or...

CALGARY, Alberta, May 7, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- ESG Solutions, an industry leader in microseismic technology and services, is pleased to announce the successful expansion of a near-surface seismic monitoring system in Western Canada. Initially installed in 2012 to monitor any potential larger magnitude induced seismicity during hydraulic fracturing operations, the system was recently expanded to provide greater monitoring range spanning multiple well pads. (Logo:...

News from the Seismological Society of America 2013 Annual Meeting The greatest threat of a tsunami for the U.S. east coast from a nearby offshore earthquake stretches from the coast of New England to New Jersey, according to John Ebel of Boston College, who presented his findings today at the Seismological Society of America 2013 Annual Meeting. The potential for an East Coast tsunami has come under greater scrutiny after a 2012 earthquake swarm that occurred offshore about 280...

University of Utah A new University of Utah study has identified hundreds of previously unrecognized small aftershocks that happened after Utah's deadly Crandall Canyon mine collapse in 2007. The aftershocks suggest the collapse was as big – and perhaps bigger – than shown in another study by the university in 2008. Mapping out the locations of the aftershocks "helps us better delineate the extent of the collapse at Crandall canyon. It's gotten bigger," says Tex Kubacki, a...

Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online A powerful earthquake rocked China’s Sichuan Province Saturday morning at 8:02 a.m. EDT (0002 GMT), killing at least 150 people and injuring more than 5,500, according to USA Today. It is the worst earthquake to strike the region in three years, close to where a 2008 temblor struck that took the lives of close to a hundred thousand people. Saturday’s earthquake measured a magnitude 6.6 in the remote southwestern mountains of...

News from the Seismological Society of America 2013 Annual Meeting The entire world becomes an aftershock zone after a massive magnitude (M) 7 or larger earthquake—but what hazard does this pose around the planet? Researchers are working to extend their earthquake risk estimates over a global scale, as they become better at forecasting the impact of aftershocks at a local and regional level. There is little doubt that surface waves from a large, M≥7 earthquake can distort fault...

Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online There’s no doubt that last autumn’s superstorm Sandy left a trail of destruction as it churned up the eastern seaboard, making a bulls-eye run at New York City. But a new study from researchers at the University of Utah has found that the storm also shook things up a bit. When Sandy took a left turn for Long Island and NYC, powerful ocean waves began slamming into each other and battered the coastline, sending seismometers up...

Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Blasting sound waves through the ocean to the seafloor in search of fossil fuels may do more harm than good, according to environmentalists. But the US Department of Interior has been considering giving large oil and gas companies permission to do just that. According to estimates, scores of  marine mammals would be injured and possibly killed along the east coast if these companies follow through with their dangerous sonar...

News from the Seismological Society of America 2013 Annual Meeting Salt Lake Valley, home to the Salt Lake City segment of the Wasatch fault zone and the West Valley fault zone, has been the site of repeated surface-faulting earthquakes (of about magnitude 6.5 to 7). New research trenches in the area are helping geologists and seismologists untangle how this complex fault system ruptures and will aid in forecasting future earthquakes in the area. At the annual meeting of the...