2-mile bore hits San Andreas fault
The first step of the San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth (SAFOD) was completed this past week in Parkfield, California. Drilling 2.3 miles down, geologists have penetrated the fault zone at the self-proclaimed “earthquake capital of the world” to the site where earthquakes originate. The hole will be packed with steel and cement so the researchers can install sensors to measure the activity of the Fault.
SAFOD is scheduled to be completed in 2007, and will be the only permanent station inside an active fault zone.
The hole starts in the Pacific Plate just west of the actual fault, which is a visible and gaping scar on Earth’s surface in some locations along its 800-mile length. The hole then passes directly through the fault zone and into the North American plate on the east side of the rift. [Graphic]
Not only are geologists looking to predict the next big quake, but they hope to measure the smaller temblors, and watch the strain that leads up to the next Big One, which no one actually feels, and which scientists have only had rough measurements of in the past because only shallow, sub-surface, seismic measurements have been made.
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