Topographical study may predict quake risk

STATE COLLEGE, Pa., July 21 (UPI) -- This year's devastating earthquake in China may provide lessons on reading an area's topography to predict a possible hazard, U.S. geologists said.

Geologists from Pennsylvania State and Arizona State universities said topographic analysis can help assess other similar fault areas for seismic risk, the geologists said Monday in a news release issued by Penn State in State College, Pa.

"(The) landscape itself encodes information about the rates and patterns of tectonic activity," the researchers said in their paper, published in Nature Geosciences' online version.

Analysis of Sichuan province, where the earthquake struck, shows topographic characteristics that could have alerted scientists the mountain range was active and indicated the earthquake possibility, the researchers said.

Topographic analysis can help identify areas of active rock uplift, Eric Kirby, associate professor of geosciences as Penn State said. In remote mountainous areas, this approach can point to activity of blind and hidden faults.

"The 2008 earthquake struck on one of the faults identified with high rates of rock uplift," Kirby said. "Topographic analysis can have potentially important implications for anticipating the likely locations of events in this area."