Midcontinent quakes: It's no fault of their own
Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - 17:00
in Earth & Climate
Most of the world's earthquakes occur along the boundaries between Earth's constantly moving tectonic plates, like the San Andreas Fault in California. Small quakes along these faults are expected to occur relatively frequently, until they build up to the next big one. However, earthquakes that occur in the middle of continents, such as China's 2008 quake that killed around 70,000 people, seem to occur out of nowhere.