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 29 August 2008 19:21 BST

Earthquake trouble spots identified

Thursday, 09 Nov 2006 11:55
LiDAR Images of Idrija Fault Zone, north-west Slovenia

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A new technique has enabled scientists to better identify earthquake fault lines that are hidden by forest cover and have therefore never been seen before.

Using a laser probe attached to aircraft, the technique created by scientists from the departments of geology and geography at the University of Leicester virtually deforests the landscape and reveals details of the forest floor topography, including the traces of active faults.

The need for such a system was demonstrated by the 2005 Kashmir earthquake which killed nearly 75,000 people in Pakistan alone. The risk of the fault line in this region went unnoticed, leaving its potential risk unknown.

Dr Dickson Cunningham of the department of Geology described such unidentified fault lines as "ticking time bombs".

"Locating earthquake-prone faults in forested mountainous regions and understanding the potential seismic hazard they pose to local population centres has always been a problem to geoscientists," he said.

"Many regions of the world have undiscovered seismically active faults hidden by dense forests, including Indonesia, India, north-west North America, all Andean nations and the alpine countries of Europe."

Using the laser, known as LiDAR, the scientists mapped the distribution of recently active earthquake-prone faults in the south-eastern Alps in Slovenia.

Commenting on the results, Dr Cunningham said: "For the first time, we are able to see how the faults connect at the surface and cut the landscape. This allows us to assess whether the faults are likely to produce large earthquakes or small events in the future.

"The images also allow efficient identification of sites suitable for detailed fault analysis to calculate the recurrence interval of major earthquakes and make probabilistic estimates of the timing and magnitude of the next major earthquake."

Further research is now being undertaken with support from the Ordnance Survey and the British Geological Survey.

The results of the preliminary studies are published in the latest issue of Geophysical Research Letters.End of story


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