Over at the blog ArtOrder, a group of concept designers spent the past week coming up with designs that fit the theme. I'm already in love with the idea of Earthquake Dragon, which is such an evocative phrase. Does it mean a dragon who causes earthquakes? Who is somehow the physical embodiment of an earthquake? Or who is magically linked with earthquakes, and so is perhaps summoned by them? The artists in this gallery have come up with their own interpretations, and they're all brilliant. Get more information on the artists, as well as dozens more images, at ArtOrder.

UC Berkeley seismologists Robert M. Nadeau and Aurélie Guilhem examined data gleaned from instruments buried deep in the earth around the Parkfield stretch of the San Andreas fault. What they discovered was that the area was constantly being rocked by small tremors from far underground, and that the number of these tremors had escalated greatly in the wake of two recent earthquakes.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser. In the map here, according to the researchers:

Parkfield is at the northern end of a locked segment of the San Andreas Fault (SAF) that, in 1857, ruptured south from Monarch Peak (MP) in the great 7.8 magnitude Ft. Tejon quake. As a result of nearby earthquakes in 2003 and 2004, tremors developed under Cholame and Monarch Peak. The black dots pinpoint 1250 well-located tremors. The square boxes are 30 kilometers (19 miles) on a side.

Color contours give regional shear-stress change at 20 km depth from the Parkfield earthquake (green segment) along the SAF. The thrust-type San Simeon earthquake rupture is represented by the gray rectangle and line with triangles labeled SS. The currently locked Cholame segment is about 63 km long (solid portion of the arrow) and is believed capable of rupturing on its own in a magnitude 7 earthquake. The gray lines within the Cholame box bound the west quadrant, where quasiperiodic episodes predominate.

According to a release from UC Berkeley:

The researchers conclude that the increased rate of tremors may indicate that stress is accumulating more rapidly than in the past along this segment of the San Andreas Fault, which is at risk of breaking like it did in 1857 to produce the great 7.8 magnitude Fort Tejon earthquake. Strong quakes have also occurred just to the northwest along the Parkfield segment of the San Andreas about every 20 to 30 years.

Added Nadeau:

We've shown that earthquakes can stimulate tremors next to a locked zone, but we don't yet have evidence that this tells us anything about future quakes. But if earthquakes trigger tremors, the pressure that stimulates tremors may also stimulate earthquakes.

He noted that there were tremors before a recent Parkfield quake, and that he's hopeful we'll get a similar burst of tremors before future quakes. Those tremors could be an advanced warning system, after more research reveals what causes them and what their exact relationship is to quakes. The new research Nadeau has done, he says, strengthens the connection between elevated levels of tremors and earthquakes.

That means the San Andreas might be ready to snap. Or it could just mean that we have a lot more to learn about tremors.

via UC Berkeley

Photo of earthquake damage to Shinkan Dam via Ross Boulanger.

Freund's theory has been around for years, and it basically goes like this: when squeezed, rocks turn into big batteries. Oxygen molecules in the rocks undergo chemical reactions, which builds up a positive electrical charge. When a big enough section of rock is under a lot of stress, the charge becomes strong enough to cause a disturbance in the planet's ionosphere.

Satellites orbiting in the ionosphere should be able to detect those changes (they may even mess with GPS satellites a bit), and one report says they already have:

Other proponents [of the prediction theory] expect new research confirming their theory will appear later this summer, based on a leaked memo written by Dimitar Ouzounov, a NASA-funded researcher at George Mason University.

On May 2, 2008, Ouzounov was looking for these same infrared light sources and found one over Sichuan province. Ouzounov sent a memo to colleagues reporting his finding, which he said was later leaked to the press.

On May 12 a magnitude 7.9 earthquake struck the Chinese province, killing thousands.

If this proves to be true, it's the holy grail of earthquake research. Imagine being able to predict quakes better than any other natural disaster (when was the last time someone accurately predicted where a hurricane would strike ten days in advance?).

But there are still two big red flags here: 1) if this is so awesome, why isn't NASA falling all over itself to get Freund's satellites in orbit? 2) if Freund has ponied up $1 million in personal cash to see this project through, he's probably going to want to make his money back. Fair enough, but things could get ugly if he builds one of the most potent life-saving technologies ever invented, but holds the information for ransom, charging world governments a subscription fee to protect their citizens from disaster.

Source: Discovery News

The San Francisco Bay Area. Let's face it: Californians love living dangerously. San Francisco was nearly wiped out in 1906 by a big shaker that registered 7.9 on the Richter scale. Fires swept through the city and pictures from afterwards resemble Hiroshima circa September, 1945. The city was rocked again in 1989 by the Loma Prieta quake. Stress is constantly building all along the San Andreas fault, so Southern California's also at risk. But the presence of the Hayward fault in Berkeley, just across the bay from San Francisco makes the place a time bomb waiting to go off: a 2002 study by the USGS said there's a 62% chance of a magnitude 6.7 or greater quake in the region between 2003 and 2032.

The Cascadia subduction zone, better known as coastal Oregon, Washington State, and Vancouver Island. Cascadia makes the San Andreas look like a pair of maracas. Recent work from seismologist Chris Goldfinger and company at Oregon State University shows that Cascadia has unleashed hell to the tune of 15 quakes of magnitude 8.0 or greater over the last 3000 years. Eight of those probably exceeded 9.0, making them among the most powerful known. The average time between earthquakes is around 220 years, but the last time the fault slipped was 1700, when a 9.0 quake sent a 5-meter high tsunami rippling onto the shores of Japan. In short, look out Pacific Rim: you're overdue.

Mentawai Islands, Indonesia. Everyone knows Indonesia is a tough place to live when it comes to earthquakes and tsunamis (at left you can see Banda Aceh before and after the recent tsunami), but unless you're watching the ticker it's hard to fathom just how bad things are. Back in December, earthquake expert Danny Natawidjaja of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences dropped some knowledge on the rest of the geo-community at the annual Fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union. Not only had there been addition an 8.4 quake in September of 2007, but a major section of the fault was still locked, and had the potential to shake the Earth even harder than the 2004 monster that caused the Indian Ocean tsunami.

He had no idea how right he was. Between February 25 and March 3 of this year (that's one week, for those keep score at home) there were five earthquakes greater than magnitude 6.5. The section of fault Natawidjaja was talking about in December still hasn't popped.

Note: If you want to participate in Quake Catcher, but don't have a laptop with an accelerometer built in: For desktops, QCN has built a USB key with the appropriate hardware, and Ars Technica is teasing us with the possibility of Wii and iPhone-based detection.

Source: University of California, Riverside

Photos: Water Encyclopedia (San Andreas), National Archives (1906 image), Telegraph.co.uk (Banda Aceh)

Geophysics professor Gregory P. Waite published his work recently in the Journal of Geophysical Research. A summary of it explains:

Volcanoes don't always erupt suddenly and violently. The most recent eruption of Mount St Helens, for example, began in October 2004 and is still going on. It's what Waite and other volcanologists call a passive eruption, with thick and sticky lava squeezing slowly out of the ground like toothpaste from a tube . . . When a volcano such as Mount St Helens erupts, it can cause a series of shallow, repetitive earthquakes at intervals so regular that they've been called "drumbeat earthquakes."

The fluid in the crack most likely is steam, derived from the magma and combined with water vaporized by the heat of the molten rock. A continuous supply of heat and fluid keeps the crack pressurized and the "drumbeats" beating.

A Fresh Look Inside Mount St Helens [Michigan Tech]