Deformation from earthquakes bigger than magnitude 8.0 since 2000. The blue squares are GPS reference sites, and the red arrows are deformation from big earthquakes.
CREDIT: Paul Tregoning, Journal of Geophysical Research
Thirteen years of super-sized earthquakes, such as the recent magnitude-8.3 in Russia on May 24, have contaminated GPS sites around the world, a new Australian study has found.
Except for spots in Australia, western Europe and the eastern tip of Canada, every GPS site on the planet has undergone small but important shifts since 2000 because of big earthquakes, according to a study published May 6 in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth.
The research confirms that great earthquakes – that is, those bigger than magnitude 8.0 – can have far-reaching effects on the Earth’s crust. And because GPS is critical for everything from calculating satellite orbits to sea level rise to earthquake hazards, scientists can’t ignore these tiny zigs and zags, the researchers conclude.
“We have to find a way to deal with it,” said Paul Tregoning, lead study author and a geophysicist at Australia National University in Canberra. “The community needs to work out how to find all the offsets, estimate them accurately and get everyone to agree on how to correct them,” he told LiveScience.
Read the rest at Live Science.
