Free Republic

The last “big one”-level movements in California’s recorded earthquake history are the 1857 earthquake in the central third of the San Andreas and the 1906 earthquake in the northern third...that’s not to say there haven’t been major earthquakes since then. The 1989 San Francisco-area earthquake and the 1994 Northridge earthquakes, for instance, were both devastating and destructive shocks... The impact that a large earthquake has, whether it’s a 6.5 or an 8.0, largely depends on the proximity to urbanized areas. The southern San Andreas is particularly of concern for experts when looking at places that are overdue for an earthquake...

The San Andreas Fault is part of a giant "Z" of faults; the top of the "Z" consists of the Ridgecrest Fault, the middle is the Garlock Fault and the bottom is the southern part of the famous San Andreas. If the "top-of-the-Z" Ridgecrest Fault were to have a really big earthquake (at least a magnitude 7.5), that could trigger an earthquake on the "middle-of-the-Z" Garlock Fault, which, in turn, could cause a massive earthquake along the "bottom-of-the-Z" San Andreas, a new study finds. These successive earthquakes wouldn't necessarily happen all at once, but over a period of time (perhaps...

Aftershocks of the magnitude 7.1 earthquake near Ridgecrest have been creeping into areas close to two major earthquake faults, a development that is generating interest and some concern among seismologists over whether it could trigger another huge temblor. Both faults are capable of producing new earthquakes of magnitude 7 or greater. The U.S. Geological Survey says the chance of an earthquake of magnitude 7 or greater from the July 5 earthquake is 1 in 300 — “possible, but with a low probability.”

Somebody alert Jeff Bezos: the Moon is shrinking. According to a new research study, the Moon may be shrinking as it experiences lunar quakes, known as "moonquakes." Researchers analyzed 28 moonquakes from 1969 to 1977 and came up with the startling observation that eight of the quakes came from "true tectonic activity — the movement of crustal plates," as opposed to impacts from asteroids or rumblings inside the celestial satellite. “We found that a number of the quakes recorded in the Apollo data happened very close to the faults seen in the [NASA’s Apollo and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter missions] LRO...

The problem with a giant con game like global warming hysteria is that the baseline dishonesty ends up corrupting other institutions.  Academia is pre-eminent among the collateral corruptees, but even a Native American tribe in genuine peril is in on the game. Willis Eschenbach provides the ugly details at Watts Up With That? He spotted news that a tribe on the seashore of Olympic Peninsula is being touted as the “first climate refugees.”  He drily notes 8 other separate claims of being the first climate refugees, so dubs the Quinault Indian Nation the “ninth first climate refugees.” But that is...

PASADENA, Calif. — Shattered cave formations in the central United States may preserve one of the longest records of powerful earthquakes in this region. Historical records from European settlers provide vivid accounts of deadly earthquakes in states such as Missouri, Tennessee and Illinois. For instance, in 1811 and 1812, people saw the ground ripple like ocean waves when the New Madrid Fault Zone unleashed earthquakes thought to be greater than magnitude 8. However, no written accounts exist from before Europeans arrived. And most earthquake faults in the Midwest are hidden deep beneath the surface, so scientists can't dig into the...

With several faults slicing through the San Francisco Bay Area, forecasting the next deadly earthquake becomes a question of when and where, not if. Now researchers propose that four faults have built up enough seismic strain (stored energy) to unleash destructive earthquakes, according to a study published today (Oct. 13) in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America. The quartet includes the Hayward Fault, the Rodgers Creek Fault, the Green Valley Fault and the Calaveras Fault. While all are smaller pieces of California's San Andreas Fault system, which is more than 800 miles (1,300 kilometers) long, the four faults...

Scientists at the University of Liverpool have shown that deep sea fault zones could transport much larger amounts of water from the Earth’s oceans to the upper mantle than previously thought.Water is carried mantle by deep sea fault zones which penetrate the oceanic plate as it bends into the subduction zone.  Subduction, where an oceanic tectonic plate is forced beneath another plate, causes large earthquakes such as the recent Tohoku earthquake, as well as many earthquakes that occur hundreds of kilometers below the Earth’s surface.Seismic modellingSeismologists at Liverpool have estimated that over the age of the Earth, the Japan subduction...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department's internal watchdog faulted 14 federal agents and prosecutors on Wednesday for the botched anti-gun-trafficking effort known as "Operation Fast and Furious" but cleared Attorney General Eric Holder of any wrongdoing. The report by the department's inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, prompted two senior officials to leave the government. Congressional Republicans investigating the mismanaged operation had accused Holder of covering it up. A report bolstering their claim would have been an embarrassment for President Barack Obama, who appointed Holder to his job, in the home stretch of the presidential campaign. One U.S. agent was...

The program operated by the San Francisco district attorney's office targeting customers of prostitutes has ill-defined goals and no way to determine its effectiveness, according to a new audit by the city's budget analyst. Despite being touted as a national model that comes at no cost to taxpayers, the audit said the program didn't cover its expenses in each of the last five years, leading to a $270,000 shortfall. The program has first-time offenders arrested for soliciting a prostitute pay as much as $1,000 for a one-day class taught by sex-trafficking experts, former prostitutes and others in exchange for having...

he giant earthquake that devastated China's Sichuan region in May, killing more than 70,000 people, worsened geological stresses on important faults in the area, U.S. geologists said on Sunday. These stresses are likely to lead to large aftershocks, some greater than 150 miles (240 km) away, they reported in the journal Nature.

On Shaky Ground: Geological Faults Threaten HoustonPictured is a Houston-area map showing the locations of salt domes and known active surface faults interpreted on lidar imagery. (Credit: Shuhab Khan and Richard Engelkemeir)ScienceDaily (Apr. 29, 2008) — After finding more than 300 surface faults in Harris County, a University of Houston geologist now has information that could be vitally useful to the region's builders and city planners. This information -- the most accurate and comprehensive of its kind -- was discovered by Shuhab Khan, assistant professor of geology, and Richard Engelkemeir, a geology Ph.D. student, using advanced radar-like laser technology. Although...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan on Sunday faulted Democrats, including presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton, for moving away from former President Bill Clinton's embrace of globalization. "They're taking positions, which he as president veered away from," Greenspan said on NBC's "Meet the Press," speaking about Democrats and a possible White House under Hillary Clinton, who polls show as the Democrats' front-runner. Asked how Democrats today were different from the party Bill Clinton led, Greenspan responded; "The whole area of trade ... is a very critical issue, because it's not only the issue of trade. "It refers...

WASHINGTON - President Bush's war strategy is failing and the top military commander in Iraq is "dead flat wrong" for warning against major changes, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said Sunday. Ahead of two days of crucial testimony by Bush's leading military and political advisers on Iraq, Sen. Joseph Biden indicated that he and other Democrats would persist in efforts to set target dates for bringing troops home. "The reality is that although there's been some mild security progress, there is in fact no security in Baghdad or Anbar province where I was dealing with the...

INDIANAPOLIS - The Rev. Al Sharpton criticized the Christian right Tuesday for focusing too much political discussion on abortion and same-sex marriage and said black churches must talk about fighting poverty, equal access to education and other social justice issues. With comedian/activist Dick Gregory at his side, Sharpton also condemned Indiana's new voter ID law requiring people to present government-issued identification at the polls. "We have been inundated in the faith community with bedroom sexual morality issues and not dealing with the broader moral issues of poverty, of injustice and of health care," Sharpton said at a news conference amid...

Imagine the surface of Earth as a giant trampoline that accumulated a slab of ice over the winter, and you can get a sense of what a growing number of scientists say is in store for the planet as glaciers keep melting. Once the trampoline's ice turns to water that drips over the edges in the warm days of spring, the concave elastic slowly rebounds to its original flat shape. That's how Earth responds as glaciers retreat, and the consequences promise to be ... interesting. The reason is that one cubic meter of ice weighs just over a ton, and...

An independent state audit into University of California compensation practices portrays a pay structure run amok, where officials regularly bent the rules to secure better deals for top administrators and a shoddy centralized bookkeeping system provided inadequate checks and balances on pay matters. As a result, the university overpaid at least one employee nearly $130,000, padded the retirement-covered compensation of others, and provided housing allowances and other perks far in excess of amounts allowed under policy. The audit said many of the deals were not reported to the public and UC's own governing board. All told, UC handed out $334...

Practitioners of the ‘dismal science’ should stop sneering at their academic cousins in the social sciences—and start learning from them. In 1849, the Scottish essayist Thomas Carlyle labeled economics the “dismal science.” Two centuries later, contemporary practitioners still study dismal choices: Higher prices or fewer jobs? Spend or save? They have also become a smug lot...

News Pits and tectonic grabens in Phlegethon Catena Perspective view of Phlegethon Catena9 February 2006These images, taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft, show pits and tectonic ‘grabens’ in the Phlegethon Catena region of Mars. Map showing Phlegethon Catena in context The HRSC obtained these images during orbit 1217 with a ground resolution of approximately 11.9 metres per pixel. The scenes show the region of Phlegethon Catena, centred at approximately 33.9° South and 253.1° East. Located south-east of the Alba Patera volcano, Phlegethon Catena is a region exhibiting a high density of...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - An internal CIA report reportedly criticizes ex-CIA chief George Tenet and several other former and current CIA officials for not dealing effectively with Al-Qaeda before the September 11 attacks. Tenet, who resigned in July 2004 after seven years at the top, was censured for failing to develop and carry out a strategic plan to take on Al-Qaeda in the years before the attacks, two people familiar with the report told The New York Times. The highly classified report, put together by Central Intelligence Agency inspector general John Helgerson, described systemic problems at the CIA before the 2001...