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Killed-Off Corals Hold Clues to Earthquake Prediction
SAN FRANCISCO — Some of the biggest coral die-offs in recorded history happened in 2004 and 2005, after massive earthquakes in Sumatra, off the coast of Indonesia.
Now, researchers report similar evidence of ancient massive coral kills on Simeulue Island, caused by ancient earthquakes. An analysis of the fossil coral beds provides clues to the history of megaearthquakes in the region, and could help predict future quakes, researchers said Monday (Dec. 3) at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union.
Simeulue Island lies off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, where the 2004 earthquake stopped and the 2005 shaker began to rip the fault apart. Earthquakes of this size may break a fault for hundreds of miles, but they do have a starting and stopping point.
The 2005 magnitude-8.7 earthquake lifted the southern end of Simeulue Island more than 5 feet (1.5 meters), killing the exposed parts of the large, circular coral “microatolls,” which resemble cinnamon buns.
But the northern part of the island remained stationary during the 2005 earthquake, said Aron Meltzner, a research fellow at the Earth Observatory Institute of Singapore. The reverse holds true for 2004′s megaquake, the giant magnitude-9.1 that hit on Dec. 26. That quake stopped just midway through Simeulue Island.
“The two halves of Simeulue have strikingly different histories. The two halves don’t talk to each other,” Meltzner said.
Meltzner found a similar dichotomy stretching as far back as 1394 — none of the major uplifts in northern Simeulue extended into the south. And two big earthquakes in the south stopped midway through the island, before reaching the northern end.
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2012-12-06 17:23:03
Source: http://yeoldefalseflag.com/thread-killed-off-corals-hold-clues-to-earthquake-prediction
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