[NormsRevenge]

Ping

[cmsgop]

Super Quake BUMP!

[Consort]

And all the while I thought it was caused by a hernia.

[RightWhale]

the quake could have been the first in a series of large events

Time will tell, but today and tomorrow are a time of maximum tidal stress.

[fone]

Cool science *bump*

[Dallas]

Yikes....the term rupture has a special meaning to us guys. It's something that we can really relate to.

No matter how plausible their explanation, I find little comfort..

[tubebender]

Shakey Ping...

[Graewoulf]

" -- left the western half of the great fault unbroken -- " is a good observation. One problem many geoscientists have is to ASSUME that a fault causes an earthquake, and when their top-down view doesn't fit, they then speculate as they did in the text above.

A quake in the Earth sends out a variety of waves, initially spherically concentric, and a fault may or may not be re-activated by these waves. The waves will usually take the most efficient path. Sometimes this path of least resistance may rupture a mass of rock, and thus create a brand new fault.

In the above text, the waves re-activated part of the fault, but not all of the fault. The fault was responding to the waves of energy in the Earth, and not the other way around.