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Newly Discovered Fault Under L.A.
Randolpho writes "Whether you like the city or not, you can't say Los Angeles doesn't have a fault. It does, and it's one of earth-shattering proportions. Geologists have confirmed that LA was built right over a faultline, which they're calling the Puente Hills Blind Thrust System; it runs from northern Orange County through Los Angeles on up to Beverly Hills, and has a habbit of ripping earthquakes as large as 7.5 on the Richter Scale every 10 thousand years or so. And the last one was about 8 thousand years ago."
naa! Can't be :).. I guess Insurance Companies earthquake Periums will go way up in about 1800 years or so.
Who needs WiFi when we can have Packet Over Sheep! http://datacomm.org/PoS-InternetDraft.txt
I just got here, and now you're telling me I'm due for a huge earthquake?
Well, I suppose on the bright side, if it's true I might be able to afford buying that house after all.
And all I can say is Scum City couldn't care less...how could you when you're too busy shooting wi' your homies and pimpin' the ho's
And to think, all this time I thought that was how Hollywood executives mate...
In Soviet Rush, today's Tom Sawyer gets high on you.
Nice to know, but not a whole lot that can be done about it other than move somewhere else. I suppose you can build better and safer structures but when a big enough quake occurs nothing will help. I'd be more worried about offshore, undersea quakes.
So in a way, you could say this is a continental segmentation fault?
8-)
And to think that I thought all that rumbling was just the automatic gunfire from the local crips and bloods who maintain our number #1 status quo worldwide...
You learn something new everyday!
...so you mean to say that we may have 2,000 years left to wait?
Argh!
The wheels of justice turn slowly indeed...
I'm not American, but as I understand your legal system, the correct thing to do is sue the scientists, right?
I'm sure you'll be hearing cries of "dupe, dupe!".
I live in LA city, and there hasn't been an EAWRHTTOIHEOIUOIQWOHE HELP HE
We are always told every few months the earth is overdue a major earthquake, eruption, ice collapse, comet or other worldwide catastrophy. If it happens it will happen, but for now I'm happy where I am away from any of them.
So what you're telling me is that the next earthquake has a possiblity of knocking out all of the Valley girls. . .hmmm I'm all for this fault ;)
Come on, I thought nerds would at least get something like this before Leno!?! But no, it was in his monoloug last night.
....and mention the obvious jokes that'll refer
to "seg faults"
The law of excluded middle : Either I'm foo or I'm foobar
Oh no! I hope no tennis courts or olympic-sized swimming pools get damaged when the next big one hits!
I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
"it runs from northern Orange County through Los Angeles on up to Beverly Hills, and has a habbit of ripping earthquakes as large as 7.5 on the Richter Scale every 10 thousand years or so. And the last one was about 8 thousand years ago." Sounds to me like the making of the next really bad disaster movie.
"I live in LA city..."
HA! we know you're not from LA! you would have referred to it as "LA", "Orange County", "San Jose", or any number of cities around the vicinity that no one in hell who isn't from LA could begin to locate geographically...
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
I can see a Jerry Bruckheimer production coming
I live in Puente Hills area and I don't think it matters WHERE you live in Southern CA, it will still be bad when a major quake hits.
My friend, who is interested in earthquakes as a hobby, told me that this story has technical errors. Does anyone else agree?
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Time to move to Afghanistan. :rolleyes:
eTrade SUCKS
..when you read
Geologists have confirmed that LA was built right over a faultline
as
Googlists have confirmed that LA was built right over a faultline
and thinking
"What? People can make scientific discoveries by searching the internet?"
I have to go lie down now.
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
*wanders back to his east coast cave*
I blame Los Angeles. It's their own fault, after all.
FYI. The Twin Pines Mall (name replaced Puente Hills Mall), in the first movie of Back to the Future Trilogy, is located in this area.
You can see photographs and information here and here.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
This is Slashdot, you extrapolate for yourself. Haven't you learned anything yet, lol.
Visit www.seriouslythough.com
Is that like a hobbit?
"You heard the man, Tubbs.. get undressed."
Puente Hills Blind Thrust System ...tonight only at the Hep-Cat Club!
A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with. - Tennessee Williams
Enter ["Blind Thrust"] comment here.
I mean...really...who thought that up?
Mordor...a magical, mythical land where women are more rare than dragons--but where every man would rather find a dragon
Sharks don't kill people, looking like a seal does.
Explosions don't kill people, debris does.
Knives don't kill people, a thrusting motion does.
"We shall party like the Greeks of old! You know the ones I mean." - HedonismBot
Link: A recently mapped, still-active fault line that snakes beneath downtown Los Angeles is capable of generating major earthquakes, but only about once every 2,000 years, according to a new study.
"If you had to design the worst place to put a fault in Los Angeles, Puente Hills is it," Dolan said.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
The RIAA is assessed for property repairs totaling $97 Trillion, or is it Billion?
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Please refrain from using the term "gay" to imply "stupid." Unless he really is gay. In which case...is he hot?
Wait a second. This is Slashdot. Oops.
CNN has an article on this new fault that is slightly less confusing. You can find it here.
Impersonating Tycho from Penny Arcade since before there was a PA.
You know, by the description here, it sounds like its running exactly under I-405, the Santa Monica freeway, which is already one of the biggest faults LA's ever had...
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
Didn't you see the opening credits?
With respects to Richard O'Brian. Let's do the Time Warp Agaaaaaaaain! Of course, that 'Jump to the left' might just kickstart the fault. No more Saturday night Rocky's in LA, I guess... Shame...
In one of the superman movies Lex Luthor bought most of Arizona and was gonna disturb the Californian fault lines (nukes i think) and drop the west coast into the pacific. Then all his cheap Arizonan land would turn into pricey waterfront property.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Yeah, interestingly enough I was wondering about exactly that the other day... I am planning a road trip through California (all the way from Florida), and noticed that there is a city named "Lone Pine" in California... All I could think of was the "Lone Pine Mall" and old man Peabody screaming "My pines!" from Back to the Future.
So, you've answered a burning question of mine that I never knew who to ask. Thanks!
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
Asian american...
Opinions stated are mine and do not reflect those of the Illuminati
California outlaws the Shake and the Swing, following intense lobbying by Donald Rumsfeld and his "dancing-is-sinful" raving chums.
/. Where the truth
Googlism nr.1:
Googlism nr.2:
So clearly, we googlists can't take the credit for this one. But we were close to un-earthing the problem (-: before those darn geologists beat us to it:
Googlism nr.3:
And we'll sink with Californiaaa, when it falls into the seaaaaaaaaa...
The article names one of the thousands of faults in the LA basin, and probably one or the 10 or so that could cause serious damage.
The Newport-Inglewood fault is also another one that you don't hear about (for you Los Angelinos, it runs right under the 405 and up through Westwood - go Bruins!), but it has as much potential to cause damage as any other.
What is interesting is that they were able to accurately measure the folded sandstone (anyone know what units? It's too deep to be QAL) clearly enough at depth.
The rate of earthquakes on the west coast is high - you'll see a 2 on the Richter every few days, but you won't notice it.
Seeing as how the San Andreas last popped near Ft. Tejon in the mid 1800s, that is the one that would scare me: it moved about 30' back then. With the #$(#@ government allowing developers to build on top of the fault zone, some poor schlubs are going to find the remains of their living room 30 feet away from the remains of the rest of their home. Or rubble.
Just make sure your earthquake kit is up-to-date and don't sweat it. It could be worse: it could be Seattle (an earthquate caused by Juan de Fuca plate movement could cause a Tsunami AND erupt that little ol' volcano they have just outside the city). Do'o.
Yeah, right.
who wants to start a fundraiser for Hillary Rosen and Jack Valenti to move to houses that reside on this fault line? After all, it's their fault.
A city in California dangerously close to a fault line....and this is news because?
*waits for that luxurious waterfront property to show up in Arizona*
-1 Overrated (Too many big words for me to comprehend)
This is silly - if not FUD for grant money.
The LA basin is about 1 to 30 kilometers of rubble on top of a very active basement of solid rock which is riddled with active faults like a piece of dropped china is riddled with cracks. All of the rubble (alluvium) makes it hard to see active faults as they are buried deep.
Basically every big earthquake that LA has experienced (with the exception of the large one the San Andreas fault in the 1840's) has been on a previously unknown fault.
So, earthquakes happen, but our ability to tell exactly where they will be is near nil.
Normally, I would let this pass. In this CASE, I think you're being to SENSITIVE. Doesn't your rant CAPITALISE on my capitalisation too? Aren't we all at FAULT?
The law of excluded middle : Either I'm foo or I'm foobar
I found out about this story on news.google.com
Slashdot's report was the highest ranked one - above National Geographic, and the Los Angeles Daily.
In the "honorable mention" category were CNN and NBC.
If only I could see the faces of the editors for those news agencies when they saw that...
Mike Davis's book, Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster,is a pretty good liberal read about LA and its various geological and meteorological issues. You might also check out his City of Quartz as well if you really hate the place :-)
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Winton
other areas far from the west coast in the U.S. have been rated for being in danger of a severe quake....even parts of my home state of Illinois , about every 500 years or so
I don't doubt that the fault line exists, but how exactly can they tell what earthquakes happened thousands of years ago?
"Let's goLet's go burn down the observatory so this will never happen again."
- Moe, after the comet that was going to destroy Springfeild burns up in the atmosphere
My other sig is funny!
Now my ruthless plan to buy the land around Los Angeles, and blow up the fault line so that Los Angeles has a massive earthquake and falls into the ocean can finally succeed!
Then all the rich saps living in Los Angeles will have nowhere to go except another city...MY city - Lutherville. It won't be long before I own their sorry butts! And no one can stop me!
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
Disclaimer: I haven't read the article yet
But generally, geologists can find out the possible magnitude earthquake a fault can produce by looking at the total surface area of the fault, which is length x depth of the fault. The San Andreas can produce something in the area of a magnitude 8 while the area off the coast of Seattle can produce upwards of a 9.2 (which releases about 30 times more energy than an 8.0) since it is in a subduction zone and the surface area of the fault is much greater than that of the San Andreas. I don't know the exact forumla that they use to calculate this though, sorry.
In regards to determining when a fault last ruptured, you dig a trench across the fault and look at the layers of sediment across it. The layers near the surface will most likely be even, but as you go farther down, you'll notice layers are offset from each other. To determine a date, you look at the most recent offset layer and use carbon dating (providing you can find some decent material) and this will give you an approximate date.
go check out the lyrics for Aenema at http://www.purelyrics.com/index.php? lyrics=utorsdph -- and 7 years early!
The surest sign of intelligent life in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us. -- Calvin & Hobbes
Like or hate hollywood megamovies, Volcano was based on the premis of an undiscovered fault line having a molten eruption. Very good insight on what actually could happen given this (but still a movie). Plus it has Tommy Lee Jones.
-no broken link
...since we seem to have significant earthquakes every decade here in SoCal I'm not too concerned about a 7.5 in the next 2 millenia.
The meme police, They live inside of my head
-- (Score:i, Imaginary)
Yeah, hopefully he'll do better than the original movie about an apocalyptic earthquake hitting los angeles. And better than
Has Halliburton been assigned this contract yet?
I am a geologist (although I am not an earthquake seismologist, I do dabble in structural geology), and I can't say I've heard anything about determining the possible magnitude of a quake through total surface area of the fault (at least it was never talked about in any class I've ever had...if you can cite a reference to back that up, I'd like to read it). Typically, such large fault systems are not a single plane of movement, but many many en echelon or conjugate fractures that can jump from one location to another with depth and lateral distance. As such, I would think it is damn near impossible to figure out the total surface area. What can be done is to observe the intensity of deformation of rocks near and on the fault plane of interest. It is possible to estimate how big of an earthquake is needed to produce the deformation observed.
Another thing to note about the Seattle seismic zone is that the "fault" is actually a subducting slab of oceanic crust, and earthquake epicenters tend to be *very* deep compared to most in California. A 7.0 quake 40 miles down or so is going to do far less damage at the surface than a 7.0 quake much closer to the surface.
Project Steve
These are maps showing magnitude, fault, date, and so on. You can also view "shakemaps" and other cool stuff.
NEIC real-time list
Los Angeles area seismicity map
U.S. seismicity map
World seismicity map
I heard exactly this same sort of story when I was living in downtown LA and the Whittier Quake happened (6.1 on the Richter scale IIRC). I wonder when that was, hmm.. must've been around 85 or 86? They said the Whittier Fault had the same potential to liquify the downtown subsoil. When it hit, I was in an unreinforced brick building just a couple of miles from the epicenter, I couldn't believe how much the ceiling beams shook, I thought the building was about to collapse. But anyway, I wonder just what is the big picture, there are a other newly discovered faults like the Whittier fault right through the downtown area, that's probably how that area originally became the flatter LA basin area, due to the repeated liquefaction of soil during quakes and subsequent resettling.
So what you're saying is that we've got 2000 years until the next "big one". Time to invest in some porcelain!
Hail to the King baby!
...
Ahhh, that was always my fav. level in Duke3D! Now if only I could get the game to build properly
Could somebody mod the parent post up as +1 interesting? I seem to be fresh out.
And also "dangit I was gonna post that!"
Note that the parent post forgot to mention the fictional fault line and volcano were in Los Angeles, leaving out crucial irony.
And realism in the movie? Um, lets just forget about that.
So to hell with the parent, mod me up!
// harborpirate
// Slashbots off the starboard bow!
I see the price of boats in that area going up soon.
Aye, however I believe (I will admit, I could be wrong!) that equation finds the moment magnitude of a fault that has actually ruptured/already had an earthquake, and you can use this to find the MW of an earthqauke.
I am digging through my notes at the moment but also did some random searching on the web. Haven't found anything definitive at the moment, but here is some linkage:
Regarding the Seattle Fault Zone and calculating surface area to find possible magnitude
Canadian Geological Survey FAQ site Scroll down and read:
Is there a maximum magnitude for an earthquake?
Though theoretically there is no mathematical limit with the magnitude calculation, physically there is a limit. The magnitude is connected to the surface area of the blocks of rock which rub and in doing so give rise to seismic waves. Since the tectonic plates have finite dimensions, the magnitude must therefore also reach a maximum. It is believed that the greatest earthquakes can reach magnitude 9.5, which corresponds to the magnitude of the Chilean earthquake described above.
Most things I am finding via google, deal with calculating the actual Mw of an earthquake based on the surface area of a fault rupture. Perhaps I could be wrong though?
>Geologists have confirmed that LA was built right over a faultline,
Looking on the bright side, that's better than having LA built wrongly over a faultline,
Okay, major earthquakes every 10,000 years and the last one was 8,000 years ago. I'll bet $100 that all the local news channels will make a big deal out of this with some sensationalist headline and drag it out over a week, then drag it out that we have 2,000 years till the next one, and talk more crap after that. P.S. I don't have $100, so there's no bet. Hehe
.smell my feet.
So when Los Angeles gets shaken to pieces, will it make a "PHBTS" sound? (Phbts! Insert flatulence joke here).
Daniel
In other news today the Big One hit LA creating a new resort called 'Arizona Bay'. Nobody was missed.
How many other professions allow you to make a prediction with 2000+ years as error margin?
I predict that within 2000 years, pigs will fly. Give me a grant. I promise to pay back all the money if I'm proven wrong.
>>it could be Seattle (an earthquate caused by Juan de Fuca plate movement could cause a Tsunami AND erupt that little ol' volcano they have just outside the city). Do'o.
Would this take out Redmond too? Oh baby!
Huh?
how long you think before someone registers PuenteHillsBlindThrustSystem.com and puts up an index embedded audio snippet that makes some rumble sounds and then says, "heh. just kidding."
Heh, This coming from someone who obviously reads /. comments often enough to deduct this point. Interesting....
Fill it with Silicone!
Linux - Because Mommy taught me to Share.
To quote the song Ænema by TOOL:
"Cuz I'm praying for rain
And I'm praying for tidal waves
I wanna see the ground give way.
The only way to fix it is to flush it all away...Learn to swim, I'll see you down in Arizona bay.."
holy crap! the earth could swallow me whole, taking me at any minute! i gotta get out of here
, fiddle-sticks; I live in Dorset. where was i? ah yes, Mrs Smith is coming round to collet the teapot this Afternoon
A blog I run for the wealth
It sounds as though somebody's been reading/watching the Lord of the Rings a bit too much ...
Okay, can someone build me a cryogenic suspension system, so I can freeze myself? That way when they have the technology to revive me in 2000 years, I can actually panic properly.
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
the LAPD making these accusations, 'cause i'd be damned to believe it's OJs fault this time.
Why do I always hear "This earthquake (or another) strikes every 1000 years". Earthquakes are not that predictable. So, no, the eathquake will not be there in 2000 years, it could be thera ANYTIME. No one in history has ever predicted an earthquake with a sufficient notice. I wonder when they will let go of the old geologists fantasy of "earthquake prediction".
are all built in locations where Planet Earth will without a doubt wreck the city. Residents have no reason to move there if they arent ready for the possability the whole city may need to be rebuilt. No brainer!!!
HenryJamesFeltus.com
"and has a habbit of ripping earthquakes.."
habbit? Is that like a hobbit with a habit?
"The chinaman peed on my rug" is a quote from The Big Lebowski and so is my answer. And so is the subject of this post. Get a haircut.
Opinions stated are mine and do not reflect those of the Illuminati