Big earthquakes make rocks jump

During large earthquakes, rocks can jump or move from their initial positions. How far they have traveled tell scientists how much the Earth moved during the rupture.

Written by Alka Tripathi Lange, Ph.D., science writer (DrAlkaTrip)

Quote: Tripathy-Lang, A., 2020, Large Earthquakes Make Rocks Jump, Temblor, http://doi.org/10.32858/temblor.129

Rocks jumped from their sockets (dark red soil) during the 2019 Ridgecrest Earthquake.Credit: Mindy Zuckerman

If a large earthquake shreds the Earth’s surface, nearby rocks could jump into the air, land nearby, and skew somewhat. New research shows that seismologists can determine the extent to which rocks have shifted during an earthquake by examining the mound of land.

“Immediately after the 2019 Ridgecrest earthquake was sequenced, teams of scientists scanned the area for damage,” said University of Western Washington master’s student Mendy Zuckerman during her presentation at the annual meeting of the American Geological Society this week. These teams noticed that some of the rocks either jumped or moved some other way from their initial position, leaving behind a groove in the ground. By tracking the rocks back to their “remaining intakes in the desert floor,” Zuckerman said, she and her colleagues determined how far and how the rocks moved, using simple tools such as a tape measure and compass.

Zuckerman measures jumping rocks in the aftermath of the 2019 Ridgecrest earthquake.Credit: Mindy Zuckerman.

This information, collected from rocks spaced 330 to 650 feet (100 to 200 meters) apart from each other over a distance of 0.3 miles (0.5 kilometers), could reinforce the Earth’s motion data for accelerometers separated by kilometers, she says. Trips by these rocks can tell scientists how strongly the ground moved near the fault during an earthquake, which can be used to model the earth’s vibration during future earthquakes.

“We are interested to see if the rock movement has decreased with increasing distance from the fault,” Zuckerman said. The preliminary data do not show a strong relationship between rock movement and distance from the fault. She said the size of the rock and the distance traveled also failed to show a clear correlation. However, Zuckerman’s next steps involve tuning in variables such as slope, substrate, and error complexity. For example, the steeper the slope, the more rock moved during an earthquake.

Once these adjustments are made, Zuckerman and her colleagues can estimate Earth’s acceleration from rock displacement data by thinking about calculus and physics – the first derivative of displacement is velocity, and the second derivative of displacement produces acceleration. They will then directly compare their calculations with data from nearby accelerometers.

The drought of the Mojave Desert helped preserve these clues of how the ground raged as it was broken during the Ridgecrest earthquake. “This method wouldn’t work well in a more vegetated area,” Zuckerman said. “Our method does not require expensive equipment or long data processing times, but part of working with fragile geological features is that they are ephemeral so we must act quickly.”

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