Scientists scramble to analyze Haiti quake

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Scientists scramble to analyze Haiti quake
Teams work to understand and model what could happen next

By Kristina Bartlett Brody
Web edition : <ACRONYM class="anonymous print" title="Saturday, January 16th, 2010">10:10 am</ACRONYM>


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FAULT TRACEA relief map of Haiti shows the fault line and epicenter of the January 12 earthquake.Image: Carl Nelson


Since the ground shook Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, on January 12 and sent the densely populated city into chaos, scientists have been harnessing every possible tool to quickly assemble a detailed picture of a region in which scientific research had already been difficult to conduct.

?The question we are trying to address right now is if there could be other faults nearby or perhaps other portions of the fault to the east or west that could go,? says Eric Calais, a geophysicist at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., who has used GPS stations to monitor the area since 2003.

At 4:53 p.m. local time on the day of the quake, a magnitude-7.0 temblor struck just 25 kilometers west-southwest of Port-Au-Prince, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The shallow quake occurred along the Enriquillo?Plantain Garden fault system, one of several major faults defining the boundary between the Caribbean and North America tectonic plates that move past each other in an east-west direction near Haiti. A section of fault approximately 50 kilometers long moved during the quake, says Gavin Hayes of the USGS National Earthquake Information Center. The largest amount the fault slipped was 4.5 meters.

Full text at:
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/55006/title/Scientists_scramble_to_analyze_Haiti_quake

 

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Re: Scientists scramble to analyze Haiti quake

Posted on Thursday, 01.14.10

Haiti earthquake had been predicted for years

Excerpts:

"``It could have been the next day, it could have been 10 years, it could have been 100,'' said Miami geophysicist and earthquake expert Dr. Tim Dixon. ``This is not an exact science.''

Geologists had long warned about seismic pressures building up along the Enriquillo Fault Line that runs from Jamaica eastward through Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and into the Enriquillo Valley in the Dominican Republic. The fault line is part of the boundary between the North American and Caribbean tectonic plates."


"Another question arising from Tuesday's earthquake is whether it presages more damage in Haiti and elsewhere along the fault line in the Dominican Republic or Jamaica.

``It could increase the chances,'' said Dr. Paul Mann, senior research scientist for the Institute for Geophysics at the Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas, and co-author of the study presented at the 2008 earthquake conference. ``The rupture in the fault line was only 50 miles long,'' he said. ``The areas to the east and west that did not rupture are under greater loading, greater stress accumulation.''

"But he adds a chilling thought: The years-long warnings of an earthquake in Haiti of magnitude 7.0 or greater -- which came true Tuesday -- were almost exactly the same as the current earthquake warnings for California."

Full text at:
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1424157.html