A huge thank you to Elliot who pointed out that the earthquakes we recently experienced might NOT have been on the Wasatch Fault. I always love it when students research facts on their own and help me learn new things!!!
Although many sources claimed the Wasatch Fault as the source of last week's earthquakes, it appears that they may have originated on the West Valley Fault or even on some unnamed faults to the west of the West Valley Fault. Here are a couple of the sources Elliot shared with me: "The Wasatch fault zone has long been known to be a serious earthquake threat to the Wasatch Front region. In Salt Lake Valley, strands of the Salt Lake City segment of the fault zone pass directly through Utah’s capital city. However, another possible source of large (approximately magnitude [M] 6.5) earthquakes lies just a few miles west of Salt Lake City—the West Valley fault zone, comprising a system of faults on the floor of northern Salt Lake Valley. Like the Wasatch fault zone, the West Valley fault zone shows evidence of recurrent movement in the geologically recent past (i.e., the past 10,000 years). But unlike the Wasatch fault zone, which has been the subject of dozens of detailed scientific studies, relatively little is known about the behavior of the West Valley fault zone." https://geology.utah.gov/map-pub/survey-notes/evaluating-the-seismic-relation-between-the-west-valley-fault-zone-and-salt-lake-city-segment-of-the-wasatch-fault-zone/ Below: Temblor map showing the location of the March 18 mainshock and its aftershocks in the first few hours. The earthquakes are on unmapped faults to the west of the West Valley Fault Zone and the Wasatch Fault. Although the quake registered a maximum shaking of MMI 8 (VIII), the PUSH model predicts a maximum probable lifetime shaking of only MMI 5 (V) here. Image credit: Temblor.
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |