Newsela Earthquake - 0 views
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MILWAUKEE — To understand earthquakes, scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are going directly to their source miles below the Earth. It is a bold plan. Earthquakes occur at fault lines. Fault lines are where the huge plates of rock that make up the Earth's surface bump up against each other. The geologists are drilling through miles of rock at dangerous faults in New Zealand and Japan. These are faults that could erupt at any moment, causing giant earthquakes. “These are the natural disasters that kill the most people on the planet. So we need to know as well as we can how they work and whether there are ways to (reduce) their effects by early warning or detection,” said Ha
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“If we want to understand earthquakes, it’s one of the few kind of direct ways we can get evidence about what faults are like,” said Clifford Thurber. He is a professor in the department of geoscience at UW-Madison. Thurber and Tobin are part of a group of international scientists working on the Deep Fault Drilling Project. The project is located in at the Alpine Fault in New Zealand. The New Zealand fault has been quiet since 1717. It typically causes a major quake every 300 or 400 years. Scientists think the area is due for an earthquake soon. They estimate a 28 percent chance of a quake in the next 50 years. Beginning in October, the geologists will drill nearly a mile deep into the Alpine Fault. Drill, Analyze, Wait Drilling such deep holes, however, is not easy. This is especially true for faults that are under water. Many of the most dangerous faults that cause tsunamis — earthquakes that create huge tidal waves — are under the sea. Tobin is co-chief scientist of the Nankai Trough Seismogenic Zone Experiment
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obin. He teaches geoscience at the university. Geologists study rocks and the matter that makes up the Earth.
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