New hidden earthquake fault found in California

Just shows how little we know about EQ's and this planet. There are probably hundreds more of these all over the world....

www.msnbc.msn.com...

You'd think in a seismically active area like California that every potentially earthquake-producing fault to be found would've been identified. It turns out there are plenty of such faults hiding in the ground, and one of them has just been found.

And this fault holds the potential of producing more than just an earthquake — it could also release a flood from a nearby dam.

Scientists with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers were inspecting the Martis Creek Dam, which sits just outside Truckee, Calif., and about 35 miles upstream from Reno. It is one of 10 dams in the United States that has “urgent and compelling” safety concerns, according to the Corps, which owns the dam. Data from the most recent evaluation revealed that, not only does the dam have significant leakage, it also lies in close proximity to not two, but three fault zones.

The newly discovered, active, 22-mile-long strike-slip fault is named Polaris for the old mining town it runs through (by contrast, the San Andreas Fault is more than 800 miles long.................

As a California resident I'm worried if there will be any more unknown fault lines that could potentially strike at anytime

There are many unknown faults still. Geologists can study landscape for past signs of faults but there are many that have eroded with time and are very hard to detect. Really impossible to find them all until they start shaking sometimes.

Oh wow.. This would just make me feel so warm and fuzzy to wake up to in the morning if I lived in Reno. Perhaps it's time we stop all the military misadventures and foreign aid until we get little things like structurally deficient dams under control and fixed. I don't think anyone in America will care much about some problem in Africa or the Middle East if a major dam fails and washes away a major American City for simple lack of proper maintenance and care on the facilities. Our nation is rusting and falling apart while we continue to spend like drunken sailors on a bender all over the globe.

Insanity doesn't really cover our infrastructure problems on things like this. The word just isn't strong enough to capture the essence of the problem.

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
Oh wow.. This would just make me feel so warm and fuzzy to wake up to in the morning if I lived in Reno. Perhaps it's time we stop all the military misadventures and foreign aid until we get little things like structurally deficient dams under control and fixed. I don't think anyone in America will care much about some problem in Africa or the Middle East if a major dam fails and washes away a major American City for simple lack of proper maintenance and care on the facilities. Our nation is rusting and falling apart while we continue to spend like drunken sailors on a bender all over the globe.

Insanity doesn't really cover our infrastructure problems on things like this. The word just isn't strong enough to capture the essence of the problem.

edit on 14-6-2011 by Wrabbit2000 because: (no reason given)

This would be a very good way to create jobs also. FDR created many such programs to put our people to work building infrastructer and why the current administrations overlook this I just don't understand. Certainly the cost will be somewhat offset by people getting off unemployment and putting money back into the economy while fixing up America in the meantime.

This is one of my major gripes I have with the government when they overlook such obvious things.

reply to post by kro32


sadly the government would rather exploit it

I know. I work researching streams, rivers, dams, and basic erosion effects of these as well as their effect on local wildlife and I can tell you that in my state alone I could easily put 5000 men to work rebuilding and reconstructing areas that are becoming very hazardous not only to humans but buildings and the local environments of my state.

We have a few faults here but earthquakes are not a major concern however they have happened in the past and our infrastructure has nowhere near kept up to standards. We also sit on a 100 year floodplain and are overdue but yet the government has done nothing to protect against a possible flood. We have submitted a plan to change the course of the local stream that will be the cause of this but it was thrown out almost as quickly as we submitted it.

This is going to be a very big I told you so moment when it does happen.

Originally posted by starwarsisreal
As a California resident I'm worried if there will be any more unknown fault lines that could potentially strike at anytime

I remember how after the Japan megathrust quake and tsunami a few months ago, the shill USGS scientists were all over the local Los Angeles news stations talking about how something like that could NEVER happen out here. They had to reinterate over and over how the San Andreas and other surrounding faults are 'just strike slip faults' that can only produce up to 7.0 to 8.0 mag quakes maximum (which is still extremely dangerous regardless).

Then a few days later there were several MSM news articles from these same idiots talking about how they admitted that they did not believe that fault in Japan was capable of releasing anything more than a mag 7.5 EQ and how they were left baffled that such an event could happen.

I wouldn't doubt for a second that that there are hundreds, if not 1000's more of these 'hidden' faults all over the world. And there are probably some really dangerous ones that have been found but not released to the public based on where they are located (i.e. under major cities and urban areas).

reply to post by kro32


We were not at war back then, and not nearly as deep in debt...

Originally posted by Disconnected Sociopath

Originally posted by starwarsisreal
As a California resident I'm worried if there will be any more unknown fault lines that could potentially strike at anytime

I remember how after the Japan megathrust quake and tsunami a few months ago, the shill USGS scientists were all over the local Los Angeles news stations talking about how something like that could NEVER happen out here. They had to reinterate over and over how the San Andreas and other surrounding faults are 'just strike slip faults' that can only produce up to 7.0 to 8.0 mag quakes maximum (which is still extremely dangerous regardless).

Then a few days later there were several MSM news articles from these same idiots talking about how they admitted that they did not believe that fault in Japan was capable of releasing anything more than a mag 7.5 EQ and how they were left baffled that such an event could happen.

I wouldn't doubt for a second that that there are hundreds, if not 1000's more of these 'hidden' faults all over the world. And there are probably some really dangerous ones that have been found but not released to the public based on where they are located (i.e. under major cities and urban areas).

No if they've found other major faults it get's circulated throughout the geology community's first then spreads out through other people. The government is far from the first to know and nothing is covered up. The government rely's on usually the local geologists of the region to report these findings and I can guarantee you that most people out in the field, at least the ones I know, hate the government as much as the rest of us.

I've done research on faults myself and if our group had found something unknown that was dangerous the last people we would contact is the government as they have no input to offer.