Huge Helium Leak Sparks Earthquake Fears in Los Angeles
Jun 30, 2015 14:20:19 GMT -6
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Post by Mystic Wanderer on Jun 30, 2015 14:20:19 GMT -6
Unusual leaks of helium-3 (3He) have been discovered at a portion of the Newport-Inglewood Fault Zone in the Los Angeles Basin. Geologists are watching it closely.
Helium-3 provides a sign that the fault is deeper than once thought; deep enough to produce an earthquake, magnitude 8 on the rector scale.
Also, they previously had oarfish, purple giant sea slugs, dolphins, and tuna crabs washing up dead on California's southern shore.
UC Santa Barbara geologist Jim Boles was sampling gas from two dozen oil wells between Los Angeles and Newport Beach, a 30 mile stretch. He found that the deepest wells, over one-third of those he analyzed, showed the presence of helium-3 and carbon dioxide (CO2) which carries the helium-3. This combination of gases indicates that the fault reaches deep into the Earth’s crust to the mantle. It also shows that the Newport-Inglewood fault is in a spot where two tectonic plates collide.
According to Boles’ report in the current edition of “Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems,” these discoveries are surprising because the Newport-Inglewood fault is over 40 miles west of the plate boundary of the San Andreas Fault System and previous studies indicated that it was not deep enough to be a high-risk fault. As a result, Boles includes this warning:
"This paper shows that the mantle is leaking more at the Newport-Inglewood fault zone than at the San Andreas Fault, which is a new discovery."
You read that right … leaking more than the San Andreas Fault. Based on that, the U.S. Geological Survey has increased the chance of magnitude-8 earthquake occurring in California in the next 30 years from 4.7 percent to 7 percent.
What’s worse, the southern portion of the San Andreas Fault from central California to the Mexican border hasn’t had a major quake in over 300 years and is overdue. This new discovery of the depth of the Newport-Inglewood fault increases the possibility of two or more faults quaking at once, magnifying the seismic energy and destruction.
According to Boles’ report in the current edition of “Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems,” these discoveries are surprising because the Newport-Inglewood fault is over 40 miles west of the plate boundary of the San Andreas Fault System and previous studies indicated that it was not deep enough to be a high-risk fault. As a result, Boles includes this warning:
"This paper shows that the mantle is leaking more at the Newport-Inglewood fault zone than at the San Andreas Fault, which is a new discovery."
You read that right … leaking more than the San Andreas Fault. Based on that, the U.S. Geological Survey has increased the chance of magnitude-8 earthquake occurring in California in the next 30 years from 4.7 percent to 7 percent.
What’s worse, the southern portion of the San Andreas Fault from central California to the Mexican border hasn’t had a major quake in over 300 years and is overdue. This new discovery of the depth of the Newport-Inglewood fault increases the possibility of two or more faults quaking at once, magnifying the seismic energy and destruction.
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