Daniel Brothers, a
marine geologist at the U.S. Geological Survey Woods Hole Coastal and
Marine Science Center in Massachusetts, and his colleagues mapped out
several faults beneath southern California’s Salton Sea, which sits in a
basin at the southern tip of the San Andreas fault. They also used
sound waves to probe layers of lake bed sediment that record ancient
floods from the nearby Colorado River. Sharp tilts in the sediment
revealed past motion on the faults, including four slips that happened
at the about the same time as quakes on the San Andreas.
At least four out
of 17 small fault slips in the lake bed records coincided with floods,
though whether earthquake or deluge came first is anyone’s guess. In at
least one case, a big quake on the San Andreas occurred at about the
same time.
“Overall, it’s a story that makes sense,” says Ken Hudnut, a geophysicist at the USGS Pasadena field office in California.
In the geologic
past, floods periodically transformed the area studied by Brothers’ team
from a dry basin into Lake Cahuilla, Salton Sea’s ancient predecessor
that was at one point more than six times deeper than the present-day
lake. The weight and pressure of this water could have stressed
the underlying faults, just as reservoirs in dammed-up rivers can
trigger seismic events. In worst-case scenarios assessed by the team’s computer simulations, this stress was enough to rupture the faults.
“The physics supports the idea that Lake Cahuilla would promote failures of these faults,” says Brothers.
“When you take a
hard look at the data,” says Ray Weldon, a geologist at the University
of Oregon, “you have to ask yourself: ‘Is this just a coincidence?’'
It is no coincidence that the United States has been dealing with major flooding woes, from our border with Canada, all the way down the middle, with both the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. Impacting @ least one Nuclear Power Plant.
Jul 6, 2011
Advocate Demands Shut Down of Cooper Nuclear Station
Brownville, Nebraska
Thomas
Saporito is a consultant, based out of Florida. He said with flood
water surrounding the plant, a nuclear meltdown is bound to happen.
Saporito wants the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, or NRC, to take swift
action.
He claims if the water rises anymore - it'll cause a dominoe affect.
That effect will shut down the Off-Site Power and the Emergency Diesel Generator.
In turn, he said the water will be contaminated.
And I've pointed
out that research has the New Madrid Fault extending all the way to the
Gulf Coast. Where our petroleum reserves lie.
