China's devastating earthquake happens once every 4,000 years, researchers believe
Chinese researchers indicate an
earthquake that killed more than 90,000 people in the country is a
phenomenon that occurs once every 4,000 years.
The massive
7.9-magnitude earthquake cascaded along numerous faults, after rocks
separating faults broke into pieces. The rock barriers normally
are helpful limiting the overall intensity of the earthquake, but
last year's earthquake wasn't limited.
Last year's earthquake
was China's
worst earthquake in more than 30 years.
"The authors
find that the stresses that had built up in the Earth's crust in the
Sichuan region were sufficiently large for the fault rupture to break
through strong seismic barriers," USGS seismic conditions expert
Walter Mooney told the AP. "This resulted in a much
larger and more deadly earthquake."
Researchers said that
regardless of the possibility of the 4,000-year trend, there was no
way the deadly May 12 quake could have been predicted. The
massive quake, which left more than 5M people homeless, struck the
towns of Beichuan, Nanba and Yingxiu.
Furthermore, the
scientists hope to be able to more accurately predict when big
earthquakes occur, which will allow nations to remove as many people
as possible away from the earthquake's epicenter.
Japanese
researchers also are investing a large amount of time and research to
look into earthquake monitoring systems, as the nation is routinely
damaged by major quakes.
"Intel is investing heavily (think gazillions of dollars and bazillions of engineering man hours) in resources to create an Intel host controllers spec in order to speed time to market of the USB 3.0 technology." -- Intel blogger Nick Knupffer
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