Graham Kent, a geophysicist at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography at UC San Diego, has found evidence that faults crossing through Lake Tahoe are capable of producing magnitude 7 earthquakes. These earthquakes are capable of producing tsunamis up to 30 feet tall! Major quakes on seismic faults that run beneath Lake Tahoe have ruptured the earth’s crust there roughly every 3,000 years or so, and scientists are trying to determine just when the last big one hit. Although the temblors may be few and far between, they’ve thrust masses of ground up or down by 10 feet or more in the past, say the scientists, who have dug trenches where past quakes have struck on the shore of the Nevada community of Incline Village.
Article from PhysOrg.com: A Johns Hopkins University graduate student may have figured out why rates of extinction were so low for many of the major groups of marine life during one of the greatest ice ages of them all, which occurred from about 330 million to 290 million years ago, late in the Paleozoic Era. The likely answer: because those aquatic life forms that did survive during this era were singularly equipped to endure severe fluctuations in temperature and sea levels. Those that were not died in a mass extinction that heralded the ice age’s onset.
According to this press release, the USGS has unvieled a new shake map based on information gathered from various accounts of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. “The real service that this 1906 ShakeMap provides is to remind people of the importance of preparedness. It’s not a question of if San Francisco and its neighbors will have another great earthquake, it’s a question of when. By understanding the intensity of shaking we can build safer structures and a more secure infrastructure,” said Mary Lou Zoback, USGS geophysicist and representative on the 1906 Earthquake Centennial Alliance. “The lessons of the 1906 earthquake have contributed so much to science, but advancing public safety remains our number one goal.”
I picked this up via MetaFilter. The USGS has put over 25,000 photographs from 1868 to 1992 online and available for free. Check it out: The USGS Photo Library Archive. Some particularly interesting pictures: Offset along San Andreas from 1906 quake and some more interesting pictures from the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
I’m sure many of you have heard various numbers thrown around everyday that quote scientists saying there may “less than 50 years of oil left,” or “we’ll run out of oil in our life time.” A new report released by the USGS says that oil reserves may not be as low as we originally thought. “The United States Geological survey conducted in 2000 predicts that only 30 per cent of global oil supplies have been used. The report also says that there are 2,029 billion barrels of oil in reserves around the globe and that is not including undiscovered oil in frontier areas.” That said, shouldn’t we still plan to switch to a new energy source before it’s too late?