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Sunday, October 9, 2022

And there is this to consider

We tend to associate the Big One that will eventually hit the LA area with the San Andreas Fault. Now there is a newly-discovered threat offshore which could produce the Big One and is close to the new satellite campus. From The Independent:

Scientists say that the Palos Verdes fault zone, which runs deep beneath the Palos Verdes Peninsula, could produce a quake as big as the more famous San Andreas Fault. Harvard University scientists say in the study that they now believe that the fault, which runs from Santa Monica Bay down to Dana Point, is an interconnected fault line. It had previously been thought that it was a network of smaller faults. And earlier estimates had estimated that it could only generate up to a magnitude 7.4 earthquake.

While that seems like just a marginal difference, the US Geological Survey says a magnitude 7.8 quake produces four times the energy of a 7.4. In a worst-case scenario a quake could combine the destructive qualities of the 1994 Northridge earthquake, and 2019 Ridgecrest earthquake, said John H. Shaw, a professor of structural and economic geology at Harvard University and one of three authors of the study... The last time the region was struck by a quake as strong as a magnitude 7.8 was in 1857.

Full story at https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/california-fault-zone-could-trigger-devastating-magnitude--earthquake-says-study/ar-AA12J2Hw.

So, when we talk about the satellite campus, we are talking about an isolated location - far from emergency services and the rest of the university - facing a significant threat. What are the seismic standard to which that campus was built? What kind of emergency planning has gone on?*

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*See also http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2022/10/now-what.html.

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To hear the text above, click on the link below: 

https://ia601402.us.archive.org/25/items/big-ten/satellite%20big%20one.mp3

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