The East Bay Express has posted the second part of their series about the earthquake hazards of the Bay Area. This article deals with the aftermath of a major quake on the Hayward Fault.
If the quake hits during the workweek, hundreds of thousands of East Bay residents will be on their own in San Francisco. The city may emerge relatively unscathed if the quake centers on the Hayward Fault’s northern section, according to computer modeling cited by structural engineer and risk-assessment expert Ronald Hamburger. But if the epicenter is on the southern end of the fault and the shock waves pulsate northward? “A rupture on the southern section, going from south to north, just creams San Francisco,” Hamburger said.
The magazine New Scientist is reporting on the effects of hydroelectric power and its contribution to green house gases. According to Philip Fearnside from Brazil’s National Institute for Research in the Amazon:
“large amounts of carbon tied up in trees and other plants are released when the reservoir is initially flooded and the plants rot. Then after this first pulse of decay, plant matter settling on the reservoir’s bottom decomposes without oxygen, resulting in a build-up of dissolved methane. This is released into the atmosphere when water passes through the dam’s turbines.”
British scientists are reporting in the latest journal of Geology that the retreat of the Antarctic ice shelves is not a new phenomenon. From the article:
Writing in the latest issue of the journal “Geology,” British scientists said a survey had shown that ice shelves had retreated thousands of years ago as a result of rising air and ocean temperatures. “What this tells us is that ice shelves don’t just break up because they get too big as the global warning skeptics argue,” said Dominic Hodgson, a scientist with the British Antarctic Survey and one of the leading investigators.
The East Bay Express has posted a great five page article entitled, “It’s not our fault” on the potential earthquake hazards that the San Francisco Bay Area is facing within the next 30 years. With the USGS predicting upwards of a 62% chance of a 6.7 or greater striking the Bay Area within the next 30 years and many structures in the region are still not considered safe in an earthquake, a large tremor has the possibility of being extraordinarily devastating.
Welcome to our new (and rather boringly named) site: Geology News. Perhaps that will change in the future. At the moment, this site is designed to provide a central location on the internet to post and discuss the latest geology news. Hopefully in the next few days and weeks, things will be sorted out and I will start adding more authors, categories and stories.