Earthquake Study Finds That 'Stable' Faults May Cause Mega-Quake

Reblogged from CBS San Francisco:

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS/AP) -- Certain earthquake fault segments long thought to be stable may rupture and cause a mega-quake, suggests a new study.

That’s what happened during the 2011 magnitude-9 quake in Japan that triggered a tsunami and during the 1999 magnitude-7.6 Chi Chi quake in Taiwan.

In both cases, scientists assumed that “creeping” sections of a fault would serve as a buffer and prevent the entire fault from unzipping.

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