NASA: Massive Earthquake is ‘99.9 Percent’ Likely to Rock L.A.
A HUGE earthquake is 99.9 per cent likely to hit Los Angeles within the next two years, scientists from NASA have said.
The group’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena have warned a series of mini-tremors beneath the surface of the City of Angels have caused pressure to build-up.
In 2014, a 5.1 magnitude earthquake hit the town of La Habra in southern California and the experts from NASA say that there is still some left over strain from that, which will almost definitely hit before April 2018.
JPL geophysicist Dr Andrea Donnellan said: “When the La Habra earthquake happened, it was relieving some of that stress, and it actually shook some of the upper sediments in the LA basin and moved those a little bit more.
“There’s enough energy stored to produce about a magnitude 6.1 to 6.3 earthquake.
Dr Donnellan and her colleagues reached the conclusion that an LA quake is almost inevitable after using radar and GPS to track all tremors in LA.
They then measured the probability of an earthquake striking within the 60 mile radius of LA and reached the conclusion than an Earthquake of 5.0 or higher will strike the southern Californian city.
However, Robert Graves, a US Geological Survey (USGL) seismologist and Southern California coordinator for earthquake hazards, has cast his doubts about the study from JPL.
Mr Graves said: “The 99.9 per cent number – I don’t know the method that was used to derive that. But basically, that’s saying that’s going to happen.
“And that level of certainty, to my knowledge, is just not attainable. We can never be that certain.”
