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Unlike the Bay Area, which has seen two major earthquakes in under 120 years, Los Angeles and the rest of Southern California are in a 300-year “seismic drought” that’s baffled scientists for years. Research published this week has revealed that a toxic 300-square-mile lake, and its effect on the pent-up tectonic plates below, may be a big reason why. In short, the drying of the Salton Sea in modern times has, for now, reduced pressure on the San Andreas Fault and delayed the “Big One,” which may one day wreak devastation on the Los Angeles basin and its 13 million...

“Unprecedented,” say experts. Look at the number of earthquakes in the last 48 hours! Southwestern Iceland was rocked by a series of earthquakes Wednesday. According to geological experts, the epicenter of the main quake was located near Mt. Keilir, roughly 30 km (19 miles) south of the capital Reykjavik. Experts say shocks from the quake, which registered 5.7 in magnitude, sparked increased volcanic activity, triggering a number of aftershocks registering over 4.0 for hours after the initial quake hit. “I’ve never experienced or felt so many strong earthquakes in such a short period of time. It’s unusual,” Icelandic Meteorological...

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — A recent burst of seismic activity along the West Coast has scientists taking notice. They believe these small tremors could potentially be a precursor to something larger. Over the last few weeks, these small tremors have been reported along the coast of northern California, up to Washington. Scientists said it’s due to the phenomenon called “slow-slip,” and it’s happening north of us out in the Pacific. “The Juan de Fuca plate, is what it’s called, is sliding under North America, and sometimes it’s locked, and sometimes it slips. But when it slips, it’s building up stress elsewhere...

A magnitude-6.9 earthquake struck yesterday off the coast of Fukushima, Japan, likely along the same fault that ruptured in 2011, unleashing a massive 9.0-magnitude temblor that triggered deadly tsunamis and caused widespread destruction. Over the course of its history, Japan has seen its share of shaking, but what makes this part of the world so susceptible to big earthquakes? The answer has to do with Japan's location. The island nation lies along the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, an imaginary horseshoe-shaped zone that follows the rim of the Pacific Ocean, where many of the world's earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur....

Seismic wave velocity structure in deep Earth revealed through seismic tomography. Seismic wave velocity structure in the deep Earth revealed through seismic tomography. Earthquakes generate seismic energy near their epicenters (yellow markers), and the energy is recorded at seismic stations around the world (red markers). Seismic waves (depicted as yellow rays emanating from an earthquake beneath Spain) are disrupted as they travel through fast (blue) and slow (red) structures in the Earth. A team of researchers recently discovered an ancient relic hidden within Earth: a tectonic plate resting beneath the southern Indian Ocean. Scientists have found other tectonic plates that...

A string of a dozen volcanoes, at least several of them active, has been found beneath the frigid seas near Antarctica, the first such discovery in that region. Some of the peaks tower nearly 10,000 feet (3,000 meters) above the ocean floor — nearly tall enough to break the water's surface. "That's a big volcano. That's a very big volcano. If that was on land it would be quite remarkable," said Philip Leat, a vulcanologist with the British Antarctic Survey who led a seafloor mapping expedition to the region in 2007 and 2010. The group of 12 underwater mountains lies...

There is a wave event coming through the sun for as a bolt of lightning strikes so a flare up shall cause a tetonic wave event rippling across these channels causing faults to buckle ,fail ,uprise ,sheer ,tear and come apart all as if a hand of God has stretched forth across the face of the earth and shall . Tetonic plates shall rise up as mountains and in places the earth shall swallow up itself in great measure ! John 4:24 24God is a Spirit (a spiritual Being) and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and...

The earthquake that devastated a city in New Zealand tore open a new 11ft faultine in the Earth’s surface. The 7.1-magnitude quake which hit Christchurch, the country’s second-largest city, destroyed about 500 buildings and caused an estimated £930million of damage. The quake was caused by the continuing collision between the Pacific and Australian tectonic plates, said Professor Mark Quigley, of Canterbury University. ‘One side of the Earth has lurched to the right ... up to 11ft and in some places been thrust up,’ he said. ‘We went and saw two houses that were completely snapped in half by the earthquake.’

Support for President Obama is waning among America’s Jewish population, polls indicate, a shift driven primarily by the president’s policies toward Israel. The London Telegraph reported this weekend that Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, described the state of U.S.-Israeli relations in bleak terms, saying the two nations “are in a state of tectonic rift in which continents are drifting apart.” While Oren since has asserted that he was misquoted and that his words were less incendiary than reported, even relatively disinterested observers can see that relations between the allies are strained. McLaughlin & Associates, a national polling...

A two-pronged post. One, I learned that some people think that Kronotsky volcano in Kamchatka is the most beautiful volcano in the world. Judge for yourself: Two, near Kronotsky was Kamchatka's Valley of the Geysers, which had quite a few geysers. In June 2007, a landslide buried a lot of the valley. What I didn't know until looking up Kronotsky is that the natural dam that was formed by the landslide breached a few days later, draining much of the water that had flooded the valley, and many of the geysers reappeared. The story is below and a picture from...

Tremors deep inside the Earth are usually produced by magma flowing beneath volcanoes, but a new study suggests they can also be produced by the shifting and sliding of tectonic plates. Scientists have recorded vibrations from underground tremors at a geologic observatory along the San Andreas Fault, an 800 mile scar in the earth that runs through California. The fault marks the boundary between the Pacific Tectonic Plate and the North American Plate. Tectonic plates are large pieces of the Earth's crust that bump and grind like chunks of sea ice floating atop the ocean. The Earth's surface is made...

PORTLAND, Ore. - Using hand-me-down technology from the Cold War, scientists have discovered that the seafloor off the Pacific Northwest is a jumping kind of place, with thousands of small, swarming earthquakes and tectonic plates that are slowly rearranging themselves. The findings could mean that a "Big One" earthquake may not be as severe as previously thought, the lead researcher said. An article in the journal Geology by researcher Robert Dziak describes the findings. Dziak is an associate professor at Oregon State University who also works for the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration. He's stationed at OSU's Hatfield Marine Science Center...

Think of it as the Mars Rover but at the bottom of the ocean, remotely exploring our own planet's most alien landscape for scientists back at mission control. "This is how the science is going to be done," said Deborah Kelley, a University of Washington oceanographer. In 2000, Kelley led an expedition using a manned submersible to explore the deep Atlantic Ocean. Her team stumbled upon something never seen before. The researchers discovered a startlingly massive collection of limestone towers located miles away from the tectonic "spreading" cracks in the seafloor that typically produce such structures. Some of these hydrothermal...