Fascinating little factoid:
These are notes that my friend Char took from the meeting Sat with a seismologist expert. The Brethren are expecting a 7.2 which will leave at least 260,000 homeless with no running water or electricity.
Wasatch Earthquake Zone...I learned in the earthquake class on Saturday that the Salt Lake segment of the Wasatch fault is overdue to release and that this overdueness flows a bit up into the neighboring segment to the north as well. Should one segment go off they expect around a 7 earthquake in magnitude, but if others are triggered together it would likely be a 7.2 or higher. Regardless, the neighboring segments would be likely to be triggered in following weeks...years.
The mountains to the East are not moving (part of the Craton?) but the valleys and mountains to the West are moving towards the ocean along a shelf at a rate of 1-3 mm per year. Most of the mountain ranges to the West in Nevada are also faults and are also moving that direction as they tie into the same shelf deep under the earth. This movement is not much unless you figure out that it has been a thousand plus years since that energy has been released which means that deep under the earth, the earth has been sliding Westward now perhaps a total of 7+ feet since the last release. It is friction keeping that from moving but someday there will be that "last straw" or millimeter which is going to release that energy probably all at once and at lightning (literally) speed. Then you get the energy waves moving outward from the epicenter to compensate for that movement.
The epicenter is expected to be around 10 miles West from the Wasatch range so pretty much deep down in the center of the valley where other faults tie in and are located (West Valley, Kaysville, Granger, Magna).
Because a great deal of the valley is in the liquefaction zone the earth will move at different rates even under houses and buildings pushing parts up and down and water will shoot up out of the earth in places and it will literally be mud especially where the fountains happen.
Most homes, especially those built before 1980 were not built for earthquakes. Gravity is the force that keeps them on their foundations and the roofs on top of the walls and the walls standing straight... which let's just say is bad if the ground moves and shakes.
The earthquake expert talked at a school (where his grandson is now attending) that was built with old masonry construction and the PTA got involved and it was rebuilt a few years later (it took a year to rebuild.) To knock the school down the backhoe only had to slightly bump one wall and the rest of the school including the roof came down like dominoes. He would like to see more communities come together to demand safer schools.
Note: A year or two ago an apostle at a regional stake conference in the greater SL area told us to go home and dedicate our homes to God...and as we know we have been told to keep the Sabbath Day holy. President Nelson had important things to say to the brethren about what we must do to keep our families safe in the times to come in the last priesthood session of conference. That sounds like really good advice about now as for many of us it truly could take miracles...
His message is in the comments
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