Chile Megaquake Creates New Coastline: Big Pics
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Aug. 2, 2010 -- Five months after a magnitude 8.8 earthquake ripped through Chile, scientists are still surveying the deep scars left on the land.
Above, waves break along the Chilean coastline before the Feb. 27 quake, which was the fifth largest ever recorded (Chile also hosted the largest quake ever recorded, a magnitude 9.5 temblor that struck in 1960). That's the "before" picture.
After the quake, Marcelo Farias of the University of Chile in Santiago and a team of researchers surveyed the coast, looking for changes in the landscape. Along a 500-kilometer (311-mile) stretch, they found the land had sunk a full meter below its pre-quake level in some places. In others it had risen from the sea (see the "after" picture below of the same piece of coastline).
The team's calculations, published last week in Science Express, suggest the megathrust fault between the South America and Pacific tectonic plates slipped 10 meters (33 feet) during the quake. Some places along the coast showed vertical uplift of 2.5 meters (8.2 feet), all of it occurring as the quake released 175 years of pent up seismic energy in just a few short minutes.
The team's findings suggest that much of the Chilean coast is out of harm's way for the foreseeable future. But a section of the fault near the Chile/Peru border didn't rupture in February, and has been locked since 1877. According to study co-author Daniel Melnick of Potsdam University in Germany, the fault could rupture to the tune of a magnitude 8.0-8.5 quake at any time.
Images: Punta Lavapie on the Chilean coast, where uplift during the quake was measured to be 1.3 meters (4.3 feet). Simon Munoz (top); Andres Tassara (bottom).
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