![]() ![]() And it lubricates the faults, boosting chances for a big quake. Now, the weight of that water pushes down on the Earth's crust. And at times, the lake has held up to 30 times more water than the current sea does. The Colorado River has filled this valley about six times over the past thousand years. Tell us about that.ĪNDERSON: Yeah, the study's author, Ryley Hill, says that geological research allowed them to build a computer model that links the strong ruptures over time to times when the valley was filled with water. MARTÍNEZ: And the study out in the journal Nature shows a connection between the size of the lake and its impacts on seismic activity. That's a region where more than 14 million people live. Scientists fear that the next big rupture generated here at the southern end could be strong enough to send multiple damaging shockwaves through the Los Angeles Basin. Now, the fault line, you might know, is famous for generating the damaging San Francisco earthquake back in 1906 and the Loma Prieta quake in 1989. MARTÍNEZ: And I'm guessing the San Andreas Fault has a lot to do with that.ĪNDERSON: Yeah, it's at the southern end of that 800-mile-long San Andreas Fault. There have been just under a thousand measurable earthquakes in the past month, most of them, of course, too small to feel. Now, the Earth's crust is pretty thin here, which allows for plenty of geothermal energy - that's underground heat that can be tapped - and lots of small earthquakes. The current lake was created by agricultural runoff after a berm broke back in 1905. So Erik, let's start by giving us a sense of where the Salton Sea is, how it came to be and why it's so important to seismologists.ĮRIK ANDERSON, BYLINE: Yeah, it's located just north of Mexico, about 130 miles east of San Diego. ![]() Joining us now for more on the study is reporter Erik Anderson with member station KPBS in San Diego. The Lake may be helping to keep stress off the southern portion of the San Andreas Fault, one of the world's largest faults. That's according to a study just out in the journal Nature. That's right, possibly delaying the big one. And it might be delaying the region's next giant earthquake. The Salton Sea in Southern California is not a sea. ![]()
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