Bay Area's Future Earthquakes: Knockout Blow, or Combination Punch?

Sean Ryan

Earth Science        Bay Area's Future Earthquakes: Knockout Blow, or Combination Punch?

Current Event

     Scientists have recently predicted that there is a 63 percent chance of an additional large earthquake before the year 2032. According to this study it may not be one giant earthquake as predicted but rather many powerful ones following soon afterwards. These estimates were done by the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America.

     The author David Schwartz, who is a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey concludes that earthquake faults repeat their actions in an identical way every time. "It's truly clear that the occurrence of different earthquake sizes differs over time." Schwartz along with his team has put together a thorough record of Bay earthquakes since the year 1600. He has been able to gather this information of previous earthquakes from several sources, like paleoseismology and historic records from missions in Spain. He has found important details, such as that between 1690 and 1776, the Bay Area's most unsafe faults released a large number of earthquakes between magnitude 6.6 and 7.8, and that the famous 1906 San Francisco earthquake was most likely a 7.9 in magnitude. Because there was a period from 1776 to 1905 when there were very few earthquakes all with small magnitudes, scientists have projected that there is now a 62 percent chance of a magnitude-6.7 earthquake by 2032. Though these scientists know that  there will be another big earthquake originating in the Bay Area, they are not sure if that will be the main cause of destruction or the numerous minor ones which will happen directly after.

     This article is interesting because it leaves the readers on a hook on when this earthquake will occur , It also has a lot of information based on years of research to approximate how large it will be exactly, although thier not exactly sure how these series of earthquake be like.

Oskin, Becky. "Bay Area's Future Earthquakes: Knockout Blow, or Combination Punch?" LiveScience. TechMedia Network, 19 May 2104. Web. 23 May 2014.