The 'Big One' will be deadlier than thought: A massive earthquake could plunge large parts of California into the sea INSTANTLY
- The discovery was made after studying the Newport-Inglewood fault
- Major earthquakes on the fault centuries ago caused areas to sink 3ft
- Today that could result in the area ending up at or below sea level
- Scientists believe the 'Big One' is now overdue to hit California
The Big One may be overdue to hit California, but scientists near LA have found a new risk for the area during a major earthquake.
They claim that if a major tremor hits the area, it could plunge large parts of California into the sea almost instantly.
The discovery was made after studying the Newport-Inglewood fault, which has long been believed to be one of Southern California’s danger zones.
The fault runs under densely populated areas, from the Westside of Los Angeles to the Orange County coast.
A view of the San Andreas fault in the Carrizo Plain. Scientists from California State University Fullerton and the United States Geological Survey found evidence the older quakes have caused the land to fall by three feet
Major earthquakes on the fault centuries ago caused a parts of Seal Beach near the Orange County coast to sink 3ft in just seconds.
In total three quakes over the last 2,000 years on nearby faults made ground just outside Los Angeles city limits sink as much as 3ft.
Today that could result in the area ending up at or below sea level, said Cal State Fullerton professor Matt Kirby, who worked with the paper´s lead author, graduate student Robert Leeper.
The study showed that land within major Californian seismic faults could sink by 1.5 and three feet instantly.
The last known major quake occurred on the San Andreas fault in 1857.
Seismologists estimate the 800 mile-long San Andreas, which runs most of the length of the state, should see a large quake roughly every 150 years.
'It´s something that would happen relatively instantaneously,' Kirby said.
'Probably today if it happened, you would see seawater rushing in.'
The study was limited to a roughly two-square-mile area inside the Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge, near the Newport-Inglewood and Rose Canyon faults.
Kirby acknowledged that the exact frequency of events on the faults is unclear, as is the risk that another quake will occur in the near future.
The study was limited to a roughly two-square-mile area inside the Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge, near the Newport-Inglewood and Rose Canyon faults
The smallest of the historic earthquakes was likely more intense than the strongest on record in the area, the magnitude 6.3 Long Beach earthquake of 1933, which killed 120 people and caused the inflation-adjusted equivalent of nearly a billion dollars in damage.
Today, the survey site is sandwiched by the cities of Huntington Beach and Long Beach, home to over 600,000 people.
Nearby Los Angeles County has a population of 10 million.
The official USGS forecast for California earthquakes now predicts a 16 percent chance of an M7.5 quake or larger on this section of the fault within the next 30 years. Shown here is the chance of an earthquake across California over the next 30 years
Seismologist John Vidale, head of the University of Washington-based Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, said after reviewing the study he was skeptical such powerful quakes could occur very frequently in the area.
Kirby noted that the team could only collect soil core samples within the relatively undisturbed refuge.
He said that taking deeper samples would shed light on the seismic record even further back, potentially giving scientists more examples of similar quakes to work from.
PLANS FOR 'THE BIG ONE'
Federal, state and military officials have been working together to draft plans to be followed when the 'Big One' happens.
These contingency plans reflect deep anxiety about the potential gravity of the looming disaster: upward of 14,000 people dead in the worst-case scenarios, 30,000 injured, thousands left homeless and the region's economy setback for years, if not decades.
As a response, what planners envision is a deployment of civilian and military personnel and equipment that would eclipse the response to any natural disaster that has occurred so far in the US.
This haunting photograph shows people walking through rubble in San Francisco on 18 April 1906. Many people are worried that the city and LA, for example, would look like this again due to a massive quake
There would be waves of cargo planes, helicopters and ships, as well as tens of thousands of soldiers, emergency officials, mortuary teams, police officers, firefighters, engineers, medical personnel and other specialists.
'The response will be orders of magnitude larger than Hurricane Katrina or Super Storm Sandy,' said Lt. Col. Clayton Braun of the Washington State Army National Guard.
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