Ancient rising lakes may cause the San Andreas earthquakes

A study has found that earthquakes triggered by California’s infamous San Andreas fault may have been caused by an ancient upwelling lake.

The San Andreas Fault is the boundary segment between two huge subsurface tectonic plates. It stretches more than 800 miles across California, past San Francisco and almost as far south as San Diego.

The study, published in the journal Nature on June 7, found that according to paleogeological and geological data, six major fault line earthquakes occurred during the times when Lake Cahuilla was rising in prehistoric times.

The southern end of the rift adjoins what is now known as the Salton Sea, a remnant of an ancient lake. Lake Cahuilla used to fill up periodically over the past thousand years, however, now the Salton Sea is just a shallow body of water.

An image shows a marker for the San Andreas Fault where it intersects Palette Creek Road in Purpleblossom California, a small town in Los Angeles County. Garikavanagh/Getty

“We found that the southern San Andreas fault, which poses the greatest seismic hazard in all of California, was likely caused by the filling of an ancient lake called Lake Cahuila. The lack of presence of this lake since about 1725 may help explain in part why this is so,” said Riley Hill, author of The study and a graduate student at the University of California San Diego, told Newsweek, that we haven’t had a major earthquake in this part of the fault for 300 years.

Scientists already know that large bodies of water can trigger seismic activity, the study said. However, its contribution to causing a massive earthquake is not well studied.

The San Andreas Fault has caused experts to worry as multiple sectors appear to be highly stressed. For this reason, they fear that a massive earthquake is imminent.

This earthquake could be triggered by the rapid filling of the Salton Sea, according to this new study.

“This part of the San Andreas Fault has accumulated a great deal of tectonic stress. While it is unlikely that Lake Cahuila will ever be filled again, there is a possibility that the Salton Sea, which is the remnant of Lake Cahuila in modern times, could be filled again,” he said. cardamom. “There is evidence to suggest that it may not only be the overall weight/volume of the lake that can trigger an event but the rate at which the lake is filling. So if we were to increase the filling of the Salton Sea quickly, I would be very concerned about the earthquakes it might cause.” [southern fault]. “

Water affects fault lines by increasing pore pressure, which reduces the normal pressure on the line.

“The pore pressure increases in two ways. The first is that the weight of the lake at the surface instantaneously increases the pore pressure at depth. Imagine the pressure on the sponge…the pore pressure will increase…the sponge wants to escape…the crust of the earth does not allow liquid to escape easily, So pore pressure goes up.”

The second is water seeping into the cracks and pores (diffuse) below the crack to the depth, further sealing the puck. It’s a lot like a puck on an air hockey table. With the air on, the puck will slide easily but when the air is off it’s frictionless. “It makes the disc difficult to slip. When you move the disc with your fingers it’s like tectonic pressure on the fault. However, the increased pore pressure is like running air – it pushes outward on the two sides of the fault making it easier to slip, causing an earthquake.”

The USGS previously predicted that it was very likely that some areas across the San Andreas Fault would experience a magnitude 6.7 earthquake in the next 30 years.

There have been previous examples of earthquakes caused by water loads. One such example is the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in China, which was associated with the Zipingpu Reservoir.

The new study demonstrates how stress changes that are affected by hydrological loads can be underestimated.

“The modeling we use is a more valid complication of the realistic behavior of the Earth’s crust, but it is more difficult to solve. However, our results indicate that fluid diffusion and the liquid-solid coupling that occurs are very important,” Hill said.

“Without considering these effects, you can underestimate potential changes in stress caused by hydrological loads. We have already seen that large man-made reservoirs may have triggered destructive earthquakes. There is also a precedent that natural loads can be associated with earthquakes. Our work shows some It is an essential mechanism involved in the process and we hope it will shed new light on these created and natural human conditions around the world.”

Do you have advice on a science story that Newsweek should cover? Do you have a question about the San Andreas Rift? Tell us at [email protected].

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