A University of California researcher says earthquake ruptures can jump much farther than previously thought and that could have implications for Southern California.
Earthquake faults are found all over Southern California and new research suggests that a quake on one fault could jump to another.
That finding isn't new, but the researchers who published the paper said they found a quake where the first temblor sparked another more than 30 miles away.
University of California Riverside researcher Gareth Funning said this cascading effect could mean more widespread damage when a large quake hits.
"An earthquake could propagate to a different fault. And so this is a possibility that should be accounted for in models of seismic hazard, and it currently is not," Funning said.
The initial discovery of the quake jumping was linked to a Pakistani quake. The second quake was triggered some 30 miles away — an impact 10 times farther than previously thought possible.
"We're going to actually try and reproduce the conditions in which such large jumps are possible. And then we might petition for...this mechanism to be included in future generations of the California seismic hazard models," Funning said.
The findings could mean it is time for an adjustment of California's earthquake hazard maps.
The risk from a major quake could be greater than expected because it could cause another major quake a significant distance away.
