| inbluevt | Date: Sunday, 2013/07/14, 10:15 PM | Message # 1 | DMCA |
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The geothermal power plants at Southern California's Salton Sea don't just produce
electricity, they also trigger thousands of temblors not far from one of
the West Coast's most dangerous earthquake faults, a new study says.
Research published online this week in the journal
Science found that as production rose at the Imperial County geothermal
field, so did the number of earthquakes. From 1981 through 2012, more
than 10,000 earthquakes above magnitude 1.75 were recorded in the area. "That group of earthquakes ... is connected to the production,"
said Emily Brodsky, a University of California, Santa Cruz, geophysicist
and the paper's lead author.
The largest quake during the three-decade study period was magnitude 5.1. The vast majority of quakes were small. But they are
occurring about 12 miles from the southern end of the San Andreas fault,
which seismologists predict will eventually rock Southern California
with a devastating temblor.
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Message edited by inbluevt - Sunday, 2013/07/14, 10:16 PM |
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