Earthwaves Earth Sciences Forum

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2014-137

Quote:California Faults Moved Quietly After Baja Quake

A new NASA study finds that a major 2010 earthquake in northern Mexico triggered quiet, non-shaking motions on several Southern California faults that released as much energy as a magnitude 4.9 to 5.3 earthquake.

The quiet motion associated with the widely felt, magnitude 7.2 earthquake centered in northern Baja California in Mexico, in April 2010 was discovered in before-and-after radar images of the region made by a NASA airborne instrument that produces extremely accurate maps of Earth motions. The Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR), which flies on a NASA C-20A aircraft from NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center facility in Palmdale, Calif., allows scientists to see how locations on Earth's surface change between repeat flights over the same spot.

As usual, full article at link.

I had a shake-my-head-and-sigh moment when I read "uninhabited aerial vehicle". I think political correctness is politically incorrect. I also question it's accuracy as according to info I found, the device is attached to an inhabited... errrrr... manned aircraft. Anyway, my commentary aside, the article is interesting, as is the home page for the UAVSAR.

http://uavsar.jpl.nasa.gov/

Brian

I have not gone to your link but will later. I really need to read some scientific papers on the El Major (spelling?) quake, because I know it broke a bunch of shallow faults, some of which were not steep. But, I want to know what the full geometry of the rupture was: was the deep quake on a non-steep fault or faults, and was it as complex as the shallow rupture in outcrop.

I'm almost ready to submit a manuscript on complex faulting including strike-slip motion (or oblique) on moderately-dipping faults, offshore Newport Beach to San Diego, and it is always good to have analogues.

Chris