Researchers provide highest-resolution observations yet of the complex 2012 Sumatra earthquake
Thursday, July 19, 2012 - 13:01
in Earth & Climate
The powerful magnitude-8.6 earthquake that shook Sumatra on April 11, 2012, was a seismic standout for many reasons, not the least of which is that it was larger than scientists thought an earthquake of its type could ever be. Now, researchers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) report on their findings from the first high-resolution observations of the underwater temblor, they point out that the earthquake was also unusually complexrupturing along multiple faults that lie at nearly right angles to one another, as though racing through a maze.