Another Large Earthquake Off Coast Of Sumatra Likely

ScienceDaily (Dec. 4, 2008) — The subduction zone that brought us the 2004 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake and tsunami is ripe for yet another large event, despite a sequence of quakes that occurred in the Mentawai Islands area in 2007, according to a group of earthquake researchers led by scientists from the Tectonics Observatory at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).

"From what we saw," says geologist Jean-Philippe Avouac, director of the Tectonics Observatory and one of the paper's lead authors, "we can say with some confidence that we're probably not done with large earthquakes in Sumatra."

The devastating magnitude 9.2 earthquake that occurred off the western coast of Sumatra on December 26, 2004—the earthquake that spawned a lethal tsunami throughout the Indian Ocean—took place in a subduction zone, an area where one tectonic plate dips under another, forming a quake-prone region.

It is that subduction zone that drew the interest of the Caltech-led team. Seismic activity has continued in the region since the 2004 event, they knew. But have the most recent earthquakes been able to relieve the previous centuries of built-up seismic stress?

Yes . . . and no. Take, for instance, an area just south of the 2004 quake, where a magnitude 8.6 earthquake hit in 2005. (That same area had also been the site of a major earthquake in 1861.) The 2005 quake, says Avouac, did a good job of "unzipping" the stuck area in that patch of the zone, effectively relieving the stresses that had built up since 1861. This means that it should be a few centuries before another large quake in that area would be likely.

The same cannot be said, however, of the area even further south along that same subduction zone, near the Mentawai Islands, a chain of about 70 islands off the western coasts of Sumatra and Indonesia. This area, too, has been hit by giant earthquakes in the past (an 8.8 in 1797 and a 9.0 in 1833). More recently, on September 12, 2007, it experienced two earthquakes just 12 hours apart: first a magnitude 8.4 quake and then a magnitude 7.9.

These earthquakes did not come as a surprise to the Caltech researchers. Caltech geologist and paper coauthor Kerry Sieh, who is now at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, had long been using coral growth rings to quantify the pattern of slow uplift and subsidence in the Mentawai Islands area; that pattern, he and his colleagues knew, is the result of stress build-up on the plate interface, which should eventually be released by future large earthquakes.

But was all that accumulated stress released in 2007? In the work described in the Nature letter, the researchers analyzed seismological records, remote sensing (inSAR) data, field measurements, and, most importantly, data gathered by an array of continuously recording GPS stations called SuGAr (for Sumatra Geodetic Array) to find out.

Their answer? The quakes hadn't even come close to doing their stress-reduction job. "In fact," says Ali Ozgun Konca, a Caltech scientist and the paper's first author, who did this work as a graduate student, "we saw release of only a quarter of the moment needed to make up for the accumulated deficit over the past two centuries." (Moment is a measure of earthquake size that takes into account how much the fault slips and over how much area.)

"The 2007 quakes occurred in the right place at the right time," adds Avouac. "They were not a surprise. What was a surprise was that those earthquakes were way smaller than we expected."

"The quake north of this region, in 2005, ruptured completely," says Konca. "But the 2007 sequence of quakes was more complicated. The slippage of the plates was patchy, and it didn't release all the strain that had accumulated."

"It was what we call a partial rupture," adds Avouac. "There's still enough strain to create another major earthquake in that region. We may have to wait a long time, but there's no reason to think it's over."

Their findings were published in a letter in the December 4 issue of the journal Nature.

Other authors on the paper include Anthony Sladen, Aron J. Meltzner, John Galetzka, Jeff Genrich, and Don V. Helmberger from Caltech; Danny H. Natawidjaja from the Indonesian Institute of Science (LIPI); Peng Fang and Yehuda Bock from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla; Zhenhong Li from the University of Glasgow in Scotland; Mohamed Chlieh from the Université de Nice Sophia-Antipolis in France; Eric J. Fielding from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory; and Chen Ji from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

The work was supported by funding from the National Science Foundation and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

Journal reference:

1. . Partial rupture of a locked patch of the Sumatra megathrust during the 2007 earthquake sequence.Nature, December 4, 2008

Adapted from materials provided by California Institute of Technology, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Source :http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081203131042.htm

Rigorous Earthquake Simulations Aim To Make Buildings Safer

ScienceDaily (Aug. 24, 2008) — Engineering researchers from UC San Diego and the University of Arizona have concluded three months of rigorous earthquake simulation tests on a half-scale three-story structure, and will now begin sifting through their results so they can be used in the future designs of buildings across the nation. The engineers produced a series of earthquake jolts as powerful as magnitude 8.0 on a structure resembling a parking garage.

The one-million pound precast concrete structure is the largest footprint of any structure ever tested on a shake table in the United States. The earthquake tests were conducted at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering’s Englekirk Structural Engineering Center, which is about eight miles east of the university’s main campus. As part of the project, the researchers are testing the seismic response of precast concrete floor systems used in structures such as parking garages, college dormitories, hotels, stadiums, prisons and office buildings. They are also trying to figure out ways to improve the connections in precast concrete buildings.
“One of the purposes of our research is to develop better designs for precast concrete buildings,” said Jose Restrepo, co-principal investigator of the project and a structural engineering professor at UC San Diego’s Jacobs School of Engineering. “The results of our research have been tremendous.”
Precast concrete, which is built in pieces and then put together to construct buildings, has been a breakthrough in the industry in terms of saving time and money, and increasing durability. While precast concrete has proven to be a robust design material for structures, researchers are working to provide the industry with new methods of connecting these pieces more efficiently.
“This is really important to our industry because we’ll be able to develop structures that can resist nature’s most difficult loads, including earthquakes,” said Tom D’Arcy, spokesman for the Precast/Prestressed Institute and chairman of The Consulting Engineers Group, Inc.
The $2.3 million research project is a collaboration between UC San Diego, the University of Arizona and Lehigh University. It is funded by the Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute and its member companies and organizations, the National Science Foundation, the Charles Pankow Foundation and the Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES).
During the tests, the researchers simulated earthquakes for different regions of the country, including Berkeley, Calif..; Knoxville, Tenn; and Seattle, Wash.
“We conducted tests from lower seismicity all the way to higher seismicity and shook the building stronger and stronger each time with a higher intensity,” Restrepo said.
The results of the research are expected to be implemented into building codes across the United States within the next few years. The researchers and industry leaders hope that this project and others like it will help prevent the future failure of buildings, much like what happened during the 6.7 magnitude earthquake in Northridge, CA. in 1994, with the collapse of several precast parking structures.
“Since that time, we have been working to come up with designs that will make these structures survive a Northridge earthquake or stronger,” said Robert Fleischman, principal investigator of the project and a civil engineering professor at the University of Arizona.
Seismic Simulation
Before the testing, the researchers performed computer simulations to help design the three-story structure and to determine where sensors should be placed on it. The data recorded by the sensors were used to take measurements of certain physical phenomena on the structure such as displacements, strains, and accelerations caused by the shaking; and to estimate forces in the structure. The data collected will also explain behavior of the structure during and after jolts, and will be used to compare directly to the simulations to either validate or adjust the computer models.
The use of these sensors, along with the computer simulation, may help lower costs of future seismic tests.
“We are only able to perform physical experiments on that one structure, but if we can show that our models capture important response properly, we can run hundreds of earthquake simulations a year for the cost of a graduate student, a fast computer and a software license, which, at around $50,000, is substantially less than the costs of these kinds of tests,” Fleischman said, adding that the researchers hope to have their first formal report on the seismic tests completed by early 2009.
The $9 million Englekirk shake table is one of 15 earthquake testing facilities. The UCSD-NEES shake table, the largest in the United States and the only outdoor shake table in the world, is ideally suited for testing tall, full-scale buildings.
“The Englekirk Center is very important to the research community and to the industry because it has an outdoor environment where we can perform large scale tests that can’t be done anywhere else in the world,” Restrepo said.
The recent seismic tests are an example of how the Jacobs School is performing research at the forefront of the National Academy of Engineering’s Grand Challenges for Engineering in the 21st Century.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080822131253.htm

Earth cracks in UP seismic related: Expert

Motion of a massive granitic body under the earth could be the probable reason behind alarming cracks on the earth crust that have created a panic like situation in northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh (UP).
“If this granitic craton motion is changed due to some tectonic reason, one may see subsidence at large scale—since a fault is present along Kanpur-Lucknow—there could be danger of large surface deformation,” cautioned an US based Indian scientist Ramesh Singh.
The effect of motion of this block will be reflected in widespread cracks, he said. Singh is a Professor at George Mason University in Washington and vice chair of GeoRisk Commission of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics.
He further said that the Government of India should monitor seismic activities in the area to avert any major disaster due to this motion.
Singh, who had extensively studied the seismology in this part of UP during his stint at IIT Kanpur as a Professor said if the orientation of such long cracks was in the east-west direction, then the cracks could be due to stress on the surface of the earth due to motion of this massive craton (granitic body) exposed near Jhansi.
He said this massive body underlying the region is inclined towards northeast with depth reaching 300-500 metres near Kanpur and 1,200 metres in Lucknow.
About 18 months back, scientists observed a shift in the position of the Sangam—the confluence of rivers Ganges and Yamuna and mythical Saraswati near Allahabad—and thought it was due to the sediment load in the rivers or due to plate motion, Singh said.
“Now, the appearance of large widespread cracks is clear evidence of neo-tectonic activities associated with the building of stress in this region and we must monitor seismic activities along Kanpur-Lucknow and Moradabad faultlines,” the Professor said.
Singh said he initially suspected that the cracks might be due to subsidence as a result of excessive groundwater withdrawal but ruled it “since the cracks were seen on a regional scale in many parts of Kanpur, Hamirpur, and Allahabad.”
The formation of cracks on the earth continues to affect various districts of UP and two villages near Lucknow are the latest to witness long fissures on the surface.
Fields in Kakori block’s two villages, Dullu Khera and Vader Khera, about 10 km from Lucknow, have developed wide cracks up to 250 metres long, officials said.
Besides the villages in Lucknow district, six districts of Uttar Pradesh have been witnessing this phenomenon for about a week.

Source: http://www.igovernment.in/site/earth-cracks-in-up-seismic-related-expert/

Active Submarine Volcanoes Found Near Fiji

ScienceDaily (June 20, 2008) — Several huge active submarine volcanoes, spreading ridges and rift zones have been discovered northeast of Fiji by a team of Australian and American scientists aboard the Marine National Facility Research Vessel, Southern Surveyor.

On the hunt for subsea volcanic and hot-spring activity, the team of geologists located the volcanoes while mapping previously uncharted areas. Using high-tech multi-beam sonar mapping equipment, digital images of the seafloor revealed the formerly unknown features.
The summits of two of the volcanoes, named ’Dugong’, and ’Lobster’, are dominated by large calderas at depths of 1100 and 1500 metres.
During the six-week research expedition in the Pacific Ocean, scientists from The Australian National University (ANU), CSIRO Exploration & Mining and the USA, collaborated to survey the topography of the seafloor, analysing rock types and formation, and monitoring deep-sea hot spring activity around an area known as the North Lau Basin, 400 kilometres northeast of Fiji.
The voyage’s Chief Scientist, ANU Professor Richard Arculus describes the terrain – the result of extreme volcanic and tectonic activity – as spectacular. “Some of the features look like the volcanic blisters seen on the surface of Venus,” he says.
“These active volcanoes are modern day evidence of mineral deposition such as copper, zinc, and lead and give an insight into the geological make-up of Australia,” he says.
“It provides a model of what happened millions of years ago to explain the formation of the deposits of precious minerals that are currently exploited at places like Broken Hill and Mt Isa. It may also provide exploration geologists with clues about new undiscovered mineral deposits in Australia.
“These deep-sea features are important in understanding the influences that have shaped not only our unique continent but indeed the whole planet,” Professor Arculus says.
Such discoveries highlighted man’s lack of knowledge about the world’s oceans. “We know more about the surface of Mars than we know about the ocean seafloor,” Professor Arculus says.
CSIRO’s Director of Research Vessels, Captain Fred Stein, says the expedition was a humbling experience. “It was a reminder that at the beginning of the 21st century it is still possible – on what is often regarded as a thoroughly explored planet – to discover a previously unknown massif larger than Mt Kosciuszko,” he says.
“We are fortunate that we can offer the scientific capability of the Southern Surveyor to Australian scientists. It’s the only Australian research vessel that can provide the opportunity to conduct such valuable research to make these kinds of discoveries possible.”

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080619093259.htm

Chinese scientists call for better quake prediction

BEIJING] Scientists in China are calling for improvements in earthquake prediction, including the establishment of an early-warning system and methods for scientists to share quake information.
The calls come after the Sichuan earthquake — the country's most serious earthquake in 30 years — hit on 12 May (see China displays openness in earthquake response).
Ni Sidao, a professor of geophysics at the University of Science and Technology of China, says that although current scientific methods cannot accurately predict an earthquake, an early-warning system could alert people to leave for open spaces before buildings are destroyed.
Ni made his remarks last week (25 May) alongside other scientists at the China Science and Humanities Forum in Beijing, operated by the Graduate University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
He said that P waves — early-arriving non-destructive seismic waves — can be used to detect and calculate the scale of an earthquake within ten seconds with the aid of computers.
In the case of Sichuan, the later-arriving, destructive seismic waves (S waves) took 30 seconds to reach Beichuan — the most seriously hit county, 90 kilometres north of the epicentre — and nearly 100 seconds to reach Qingchuan County, 200 kilometres from the epicentre.
People in Beichuan could have had a ten-second warning of the earthquake with an early-warning system, allowing some to move outdoors and trains to stop to avoid derailing, said Ni.
But he admitted that current seismic monitoring stations in most parts of China are too isolated to form a warning network.
Ren Luchuan, a senior researcher at China Earthquake Networks Centre (CENC), welcomes Ni's suggestions, but says such a system is very difficult to operate.
"[The time difference between P and S waves] is so short that it is very hard to establish a system to notify residents," he told SciDev.Net, though he says such a system could be used for key sites such as nuclear power stations, which could close reactors.
Longer-term prediction seems to be just as fraught with problems.
In the latest issue of the Chinese language journal Science and Technology Review (28 May), Wu Lixin from the Chinese University of Mining and Technology, Beijing, and colleagues report an abnormal temperature rise in the thermal satellite images of the eastern front of Qinghai–Tibet plateau — the fault that caused the earthquake — 20 days before the Sichuan earthquake.
The authors suggested this rise could be caused by tectonic plate movement, and could be an indicator for earthquake prediction.
But Ren says many factors could cause the abnormal temperature increases, leading to uncertainty in using temperature change to predict earthquakes.
In a separate article published in the same issue, however, Wu writes that there should be more intensive, accurate and consistent analyses of thermal satellite images, and that these should be frequently checked against seismic wave monitoring.
In addition, Wu says an earthquake information sharing system should be established, so that general researchers can analyse or input data about abnormal observations into a system for professional seismologists to screen.

Source : http://www.scidev.net/en/news/chinese-scientists-call-for-better-quake-predictio.html

Earthquake In Illinois Could Portend An Emerging Threat

ScienceDaily (Apr. 25, 2008) — To the surprise of many, the earthquake on April 18, 2008, about 120 miles east of St. Louis, originated in the Wabash Valley Fault and not the better-known and more-dreaded New Madrid Fault in Missouri's bootheel.

The concern of Douglas Wiens, Ph.D., and Michael Wysession, Ph.D., seismologists at Washington University in St. Louis, is that the New Madrid Fault may have seen its day and the Wabash Fault is the new kid on the block.
The earthquake registered 5.2 on the Richter scale and hit at 4:40 a.m. with a strong aftershock occurring at approximately 10:15 a.m. that morning, followed by lesser ones in subsequent days. The initial earthquake was felt in parts of 16 states.
"I think everyone's interested in the Wabash Valley Fault because a lot of the attention has been on the New Madrid Fault, but the Wabash Valley Fault could be the more dangerous one, at least for St. Louis and Illinois," said Wiens, professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences. "The strongest earthquakes in the last few years have come from the Wabash Valley Fault, which needs more investigation."
Wiens said that seismologist Robert Hermann of Saint Louis University, Gary Pavils of Indiana University, and several geologists including Steven Obermeir of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), have made studies of the Wabash Valley Fault. Pavils also has run a dense local array of stations and recorded many very small earthquakes at the Wabash Valley Fault. Hermann has studied the 1968 magnitude 5.5 earthquake, the largest ever recorded there. Obermeir and others have found disturbed sediments from previous earthquakes along the fault with estimated magnitudes of about 7 on the Richter scale over the past several thousand years.
According to Wysession, there are 200,000 earthquakes recorded every year, with a magnitude 6 earthquake happening every three days somewhere in the world.
"There hasn't been a magnitude 6 earthquake on the New Madrid zone in more than 100 years, yet in 20 years there have been three magnitude 5 or better earthquakes on the Wabash Valley Fault," said Wyssession, associate professor of earth and planetary sciences. "There is evidence that sometime in the past the Wabash Valley Fault has produced as strong as magnitude 7 earthquakes. On the other hand, the New Madrid Fault has been very quiet for a long time now. Clearly, the Wabash Valley Fault has gotten our deserved attention."
Wysession said a recent re-analysis of data by USGS shows that the New Madrid fault risk is much less than was thought three decades ago. The three notable earthquakes that occurred at the end of 1811 and the beginning of 1812 were not magnitude 8s, rather magnitude 7s. A magnitude 8 is 30 times more energetic than a magnitude 7.
"The damage to the region by those earthquakes has been exaggerated," Wysession said. "St. Louis was here at the time, and all that happened was some chimneys fell in East St. Louis. The little village of St. Genevieve, closer to the fault zone, had no damage at all. But, let's face it, St. Louis is the biggest city in the region of both faults, and the Wabash Valley Fault is closer to us. If the big one does occur, it's looking more like it will come out of Illinois."
Wysession said that the North American Earth's crust is filled with cracks and faults, and that an earthquake can occur anywhere on the continent. Many of the faults are undetected.
"As the continents bang into each other, sometimes they pull apart, and the crust cracks and ruptures, causing earthquakes," he explained. "This whole region of New Madrid and the Wabash Valley seismic zone became a rift zone about 750 million years ago when the continent almost broke apart. There was a lot of volcanic activity, a lot of seismic activity. The crust got stretched and thinned. By looking at seismometers, we can actually see many of these faults in the thinning of crusts underground."
Wysession said that an earthquake in the Midwest will be felt ten times farther away than one occurring in the western United States because the crust beneath the Midwest is very old, stiff and cold. The rock is about 1.7 billion years old and the seismic waves can travel very long distances through this type of crust. It can be felt hundreds of miles away, even if it was a smaller earthquake. In the western United States, the rock is hotter, and thus it dampens the shock waves and they are not felt as far away.
Despite the fact that most seismologists, including Wysession and Wiens, don't think it likely that earthquakes ever will be predicted — which inevitably dredges up memories of the 1990 Midwest earthquake scare sparked by Iben Browning — Wysession says that there are some precursory phenomena that have been observed right before some earthquakes. Radon or helium gas may leak out of the ground as the ground cracks. Sometimes water well pressure changes, or there's a change in the magnetic field. Electrical resistivity changes have been noted, too.
"These are changes we can measure with instruments, but we can't sense them as humans," he said. "Many people think that animals sense atmospheric changes. You always get stories about Rover going bananas right before an earthquake. But until Rover learns to tell us what he's barking about, we won't be able to employ animals in any predictive way. "

Source:http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080424171350.htm

Satellite data reveals seismic link to volcanoes

Local earthquakes boost volcanic activity in Indonesia, researchers have shown using satellite data. The finding could, they say, point to a predictive role for satellite imaging.
Volcanic activity in two ongoing eruptions, Merapi and Semeru on the Indonesian island of Java, increased following a local earthquake in May 2006 that measured 6.4 on the Richter scale. The flare-up began three days after the earthquake and lasted for nine days.
The researchers, led by Andrew Harris of the University of Hawaii, used thermal imaging data from an instrument on a NASA (the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration) satellite.
This provides near real-time data on global hotspots such as volcanic eruptions and wildfires. The team used data from a 35 day period, including the time of the earthquake.
"We found clear evidence that the earthquake caused both volcanoes to release greater amounts of heat, and lava emission surged to two to three times higher than prior to the tremor," Harris told NASA.
The researchers believe that the changes in eruption were due to seismic waves from the earthquake travelling to the area round the volcano and triggering an increased flow of molten rock.
But Dave Rothery, a vulcanologist in the Department of Earth Sciences at the UK-based Open University, warned that the study’s focus — one earthquake stimulating two volcanoes — could be a coincidence and more examples are needed.
The researchers say the work shows that satellite imaging could play a predictive role in eruptions, ultimately alerting people living near volcanoes to increased volcanic activity.
"I'm not sure we're up to early warning yet," Harris told SciDev.Net. "But immediately once an eruption begins we can detect its thermal signature, post its location on our global map, and perhaps alert people via automated email."
Rothery added that anyone with internet access could identify when volcanic activity is increasing in their area, information which could be "factored into decisions about evacuation".
The research was published in Geophysical Research Letters.

Source:

http://www.scidev.net/News/index.cfm?fuseaction=readNews&itemid=3553&language=1

Deadly tremors that strike without warning- Facts About Earthquakes

Every day an earthquake happens somewhere in the world. Many are so light that they cannot be detected. On average just 100 quakes cause damage out of the estimated 1.4 million earthquakes that occur every year.
Scientists cannot predict when an earthquake will strike, but they have been able to map where earthquakes are most likely to happen.
Most of the largest earthquakes occur within the Pacific "Ring of Fire", a horseshoe-shaped band of volcanoes and fault lines circling the edges of the Pacific Ocean.
Tsunami are large water waves typically generated by underwater earthquakes or landslides triggered by seismic activity.
KEY FACTS:
The largest recorded earthquake in the world was magnitude 9.5 in Chile, May 22, 1960.
Most earthquakes occur at depths of less than 80 km (50 miles) from the Earth's surface.
The world's deadliest recorded earthquake occurred in 1556 in central China, where most people lived in caves carved from soft rock. An estimated 830,000 people died.
The earliest recorded evidence of an earthquake dates back to 1831 BC in China's Shandong province.
Source: The U.S. Geological Survey's Earthquake Facts page.

Study helps predict big Mediterranean quake

LONDON, March 9 (Reuters) - Scientists have found evidence that an overlooked fault in the eastern Mediterranean is likely to produce an earthquake and tsunami every 800 years as powerful as the one that destroyed Alexandria in AD 365.
Using radiocarbon dating techniques, simulations and computer models, the researchers recreated the ancient disaster in order to identify the responsible fault, they said in a study published in the journal Nature Geoscience on Sunday.
"We are saying there is probably a repeat time of 800 years for this kind of earthquake," said Beth Shaw, a seismologist at the University of Cambridge, who led the study.
Scientists study past earthquakes in order to determine the future likelihood of similar large shocks. Identifying the fault for the AD 365 earthquake and tsunami is important for the tens of millions of people in the region, Shaw said.
The fault close to the southwest coast of Crete last produced a big enough quake to generate a tsunami about 1300, which means the next powerful one could come in the next 100 years, she added in a telephone interview.
Shaw and her colleagues calculate the likely intervals by measuring the motion of either side of the fault to gauge how often such large earthquakes would have to occur to account for that level of motion, she said.
Their computer model suggested an 8 magnitude quake on the fault would produce a tsunami that inundates the coastal regions of Alexandria and North Africa, the southern coast of Greece and Sicily all the way up the Adriatic to Dubrovnik, Shaw said.
This would be similar to the ancient quake in AD 365 that caused widespread destruction in much of Greece and unleashed a tsunami that flooded Alexandria and the Nile Delta, likely killing tens of thousands of people, she said.
"This is consistent with the historical record of the tsunami," she said. (Reporting by Michael Kahn; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Source: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L07804229.htm

Earth Quakes in 2000 to 2007

* Up to Jan 2008 (till Date)

Israeli quake may be precursor to disaster

Israeli quake may be precursor to disaster
JERUSALEM, Oct. 14 (UPI) -- A 3.0-magnitude earthquake that rattled Israel Sunday may be a precursor to a much larger quake scientists have predicted for the region.
While Sunday's earthquake in Israel's Jordan rift valley area was minor, as were two other recent temblors in the region, scientists are concerned a larger quake could occur due to a nearby rift, Ynetnews reported.
The Syrian-African rift, known for being volatile, is close to the valley area and therefore the site of the recent earthquakes.
Department of Environmental Sciences and Geophysics scientist Shmuel Marko and Oded Katz of the Geophysical Institute of Israel said in a recent study that such seismic activity appears to indicate a more disastrous quake is imminent.
"We know that the area between the Kinneret and the Dead Sea was subject to several large quakes, in 31 B.C., 362 B.C., 749 B.C. and 1033 A.D.," the pair said in that study. "Another major one is coming soon."

Devastating Earthquake May Threaten Middle East's Near Future

Devastating Earthquake May Threaten Middle East's Near Future, Geologist Predicts
Science Daily — The best seismologists in the world don’t know when the next big earthquake will hit. But a Tel Aviv University geologist suggests that earthquake patterns recorded in historical documents of Middle Eastern countries indicate that the region’s next significant quake is long overdue.

A major quake of magnitude seven on the Richter scale in the politically-fragile region of the Middle East could have dire consequences for precious holy sites and even world peace, says Tel Aviv University geologist Dr. Shmulik Marco. In light of this imminent danger, Marco, from the school’s Department of Geophysics and Planetary Sciences, has taken an historical approach to earthquake forecasting by using ancient records from the Vatican and other religious sources in his assessment. The past holds the key to the future, he says.
“All of us in the region should be worried,” explains Marco, who dedicates his career to piecing together ancient clues.
Based on the translations of hundreds of documents -- some of the originals of which he assumes reside in Vatican vaults -- Marco has helped determine that a series of devastating earthquakes have hit the Holy Land over the last two thousand years. The major ones were recorded along the Jordan Valley in the years 31 B.C.E., 363 C.E., 749 C.E., and 1033 C.E. “So roughly,” warns Marco, “we are talking about an interval of every 400 years. If we follow the patterns of nature, a major quake should be expected any time because almost a whole millennium has passed since the last strong earthquake of 1033.”

Written by monks and clergy, the documents, which span about two millenia, can help determine the location and impact of future quakes on several fault planes cutting through Israel and its neighboring countries, Marco believes. “We use the records, written in churches and monasteries or by hermits in the desert, to find patterns,” he says. Marco credits the help of an international team of historians, who have deciphered the Latin, Greek, and Arabic of the original correspondence.
He continues, “Even if these papers were not ‘officially’ recording history, they hold a lot of information. ... Some are letters to Europe asking for funding of church repairs. And while many of these accounts are told in an archaic religious manner, they help us confirm the dates and location of major calamities. Following these patterns in the past can be a good predictor of the future.”
One of the most cited Christian chroniclers in history upon whom Marco bases some of his conclusions is a ninth-century Byzantine aristocratic monk named Theophanes, venerated today by Catholics. In one manuscript, Theophanes wrote, “A great earthquake in Palestine, by the Jordan and in all of Syria on 18 January in the 4th hour. Numberless multitudes perished, churches and monasteries collapsed especially in the desert of the Holy City.”
While Christian sources helped Marco confirm ancient catastrophes and cast light on future ones, Jewish sources from the Bible also gave him small pieces of the puzzle. A verse in Zachariah (Ch. 14) describes two instances of earthquakes, one of which split apart the Mount of Olives, he says. Muslim clergy have also collected ancient correspondence, which further broadens the picture.
”Earthquakes are a manifestation of deeper processes inside the earth,” Marco says. “My questions and analysis examine how often they occur and whether there is pattern to them, temporally or spatially. I am looking for patterns and I can say that based on ancient records, the pattern in Israel around the Dead Sea region is the most disturbing to us.
“When it strikes and it will this quake will affect Amman, Jordan as well as Ramallah, Bethlehem, and Jerusalem. Earthquakes don’t care about religion or political boundaries,” Marco concludes.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071003142432.htm

Earthquake that will trigger a Tsunami (2008-2012)

The Sumatra quake in 2004 has increased the probability of similar earthquake under the sea. The impact of a probable earthquake will be more in coast of India than the 2004 quake. The above is the map shoing the probability of the epicentre of the quake in the sea. Red spots are the active volcanos.

Source: World-Wide Earthquake Locator Version 5.1, June 2005© Bruce M. Gittings, 1994-2005, with Alison Story, Edmund Kleiser and Emese CseteURL: http://www.geo.ed.ac.uk/quakes/