Scientists Warned Haiti Quake Was Possible PDF Print E-mail
Wednesday, 13 January 2010 16:50
Gautam Naik writing for the Wall Street Journal reports that scientists have long warned of an a event just like the quake that devastated Haiti. Some expert seismologists believe that Tuesday's quake could trigger additional quakes in the region in the coming decades.

A prescient study published in 2008 by scientists that included a Haitian government researcher used GPS data to predict the possibility of a major earthquake along a fault line in the island country.

"The Enriquillo fault in Haiti is currently capable of a...7.2 earthquake if the entire elastic strain accumulated since the last major earthquake was released in a single event today," according to the study appearing in the Geophysical Journal International.

That's exactly what happened in Tuesday's quake, which registered about 7 on the Richter scale. Two regional plates have been sliding past each other at the speed of about 8 millimeters per year.The situation is similar to two cars, say, that are forced to scrape past each other in a narrow alleyway.

The Caribbean plates, however, have been locked and unable to move for the past 250 years, causing the build-up of massive stress in the earth's crust. This week's earthquake was triggered when the accumulated stress finally overcame the forces of friction that had jammed the plates together, causing a massive release of energy...more...



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