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The entire procedure takes only a few minutes to complete. The resulting model is a 3D map of fault slip beneath the Earth’s surface. The mathematical inversion gave the researchers predictions of how much the ground might be displaced, and they compared those results to their initial estimations, bit by bit, until their predictions and observations match. This allowed the group to determine the location, orientation, and dimensions of the entire fault without setting foot on the ground near the earthquake. Slip describes the amount, timing, and distribution of fault plane movement during an earthquake. They fed those measurements into a mathematical equation that inverts the data and relates how much the ground moved to the degree of slip on the fault plane. They first used GPS and satellite readings to measure the very small– millimeter-to-centimeter-sized–displacements of the ground’s surface that were caused by the earthquake. To accurately map the South Napa earthquake for this study, Barnhart and a team of researchers created a complex comparison scenario. “On an international scale, it dramatically reduces the time between when an earthquake happens, when buildings start to fall down, and when aid starts to show up,” Barnhart says. The earthquake struck right under the capital city of Port Au Prince, killing up to 316,000 people, depending on estimates, and costing billions of dollars in aid.
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The catastrophic magnitude 7.0 earthquake that hit Haiti in 2010 is the perfect example for the usefulness of this kind of tool, Barnhart says. The study, “Geodetic Constraints on the 2014 M 6.0 South Napa Earthquake” published in the March/April edition of Seismological Research Letters, is the first USGS example showing that GPS and satellite readings can be used as a tool to shorten earthquake response times.Īnd while information about an earthquake’s impact might be immediately known in an area such as southern California, Barnhart says the technique will be most useful in the developing world. “By having the 3D knowledge of the earthquake itself, we can make predictions of the ground shaking, without instruments to record that ground shaking, and then can make estimates of what the human and infrastructure impacts will be- in terms of both fatalities and dollars,” Barnhart says. The map was made without using traditional rapid response instruments, such as seismometers, which may not afford the same level of detail for similar events around the globe. New research from the University of Iowa, along with the United States Geological Survey (USGS), shows that GPS and satellite data can be used in a real-time, coordinated effort to fully characterize a fault line within 24 hours of an earthquake, ensuring that aid is delivered faster and more accurately than ever before.Įarth and Environmental Sciences assistant professor William Barnhart used GPS and satellite measurements from the magnitude 6.0 South Napa, California earthquake on August 24, 2014, to create a three-dimensional map of how the ground surface moved in response to the earthquake. You can specify what kinds of map layers to be shown, rotate the globe, click right mouse button and pull/push to zoom in/out the current map view, measure distance between any two points on the map, etc.When an earthquake hits, the faster first responders can get to an impacted area, the more likely infrastructure-and lives-can be saved. Motherplanet Earth Explorer integrates high-resolution satellite imagery (1km resolution) with kinds of map layers such as political boundaries, coastlines, rivers, lake and island boundaries, 267 countries and regions, 40000+ ranked cities, 15000+ islands, and 1700+ noteworthy historical earthquakes since 1980 into a fantastic 3D earth globe.