Researchers use ocean waves to predict seismic shaking in Southern California
Many of the world’s earthquake-prone regions lie atop sedimentary basins — large sections of sunken crust filled with deposited sediment. Because such sedimentary material is softer than the surrounding rock, these basins can amplify shaking as quakes propagate through the Earth’s crust, generating significantly more motion than in rockier regions. In an earthquake, cities like Los Angeles and Tokyo that are built on sedimentary basins can experience much more intense shaking over a longer period of time — a consequence that earthquake simulations have predicted. But such simulations are largely based on idealized 3-D models of the Earth’s geological structures. To validate these simulations, scientists would have to wait for an actual earthquake to occur. Now researchers at MIT and Stanford University have developed a new approach for predicting how much shaking earthquake-prone regions may experience — without actual earthquakes. The approach, outlined in this week’s issue of Science, generates...