A MYSTERIOUS Crack in The San Andreas Fault Tears OPEN the Ocean Floor and Scientists Are Puzzled!

Since 1906, a name has sparked fear through the hearts of people. A silent giant, it lies beneath our feet, holding secrets of the Earth's past and possibly its future. Its story is one of power, destruction, and scientific fascination. Why should you care to know? Let's dive deeper to see more. What is this name? It is known as the San Andreas Fault. The San Andreas Fault was the site of California's most devastating event, the Great San Francisco Earthquake. This massive quake was so powerful, it tore a 296-mile gash through the Earth. With nobody knowing when the next big one will strike, California seems to be prepared for it. The ticking time bomb. California is one of the most earthquake-prone states in the U.S. The state lies on the San Andreas Fault, the boundary between two massive tectonic plates beneath the Earth's surface. Stretching for more than 800 miles through California, it passes San Francisco and nearly reaches as far south as San Diego. The San Andreas Fault line is famous for its visibility, making it one of the most well-known fault lines in the world. In recent years, multiple segments of this fault line have shown significant stress, causing concern among experts. They fear that the big one, a massive earthquake, could be imminent. As a result, earthquake prediction technology is rapidly advancing. The San Andreas Fault is often described as a ticking time bomb in the California region. With time ticking and probabilities being analyzed in scientific labs, what interventions are now at hand? Before that, let's take you through the nitty-gritty of the San Andreas Fault in summary. A brief about the San Andreas Fault. An earthquake happening on the San Andreas Fault is what we call a strike-slip fault. This kind of fault is found where the big pieces of the Earth's crust, called tectonic plates, slide past each other. A strike-slip fault is like a big crack going straight down into the Earth's crust. This crack makes things move sideways along the line of the crack. The big walls of rock on either side of the crack move to the left or right compared to each other. This kind of fault happens when there's a squeezing force coming from the sides. Motion along a strike-slip fault is horizontal, with sheer stress acting on the opposing earthen blocks. The fault surface is nearly vertical, and stress on the San Andreas Fault causes right lateral motion. How the impact of a major earthquake will be on San Andreas Fault? The U.S. Geological Survey, USGS, has made some predictions about a big earthquake on the southern San Andreas Fault. They think it could cause more than 1,800 people to die and 50,000 people to get hurt. Also, CoreLogic, a company that does business analysis, has worked out that this kind of earthquake could put 3.5 million homes at risk. This could cost a huge $289 billion to rebuild everything. About 12 years ago, earthquake scientists did some computer tests to guess how much the ground would shake along the southern part of the San Andreas Fault. Then, engineers and social scientists used this information to guess what could happen if a really big earthquake of magnitude 7.8 hit the Coachella Valley. The shaking from the earthquake will move across California, knocking down old buildings, blocking roads, and stopping important services like electricity, phone, and water. This can cause a lot of damage and start many fires. Emergency workers will also have a hard time getting to the places that need help because the roads will be blocked. Things like water pipes, electricity lines, and gas pipes that go across the San Andreas Fault will get broken during the earthquake, and it will take a long time, even months, to fix them. Lastly, homes that have been strengthened to withstand earthquakes and newer buildings will do better than old buildings. This means many of the old buildings will be left weak and unsafe to live in. A major discovery by scientists. In California, miles of underwater fiber optic cables crisscross the state, providing internet access. Scientists have discovered a method to transform these cables into powerful seismometers capable of predicting the location and timing of earthquakes as strong as magnitude 6, according to a study published in the journal Nature. Professor Zhongwen Zhang, an expert in earth science, and his team have been working on an exciting idea. They found out that we can use old fiber optic cables in a new way to help us detect earthquakes better. This method, called distributed acoustic sensing, makes these cables work like a big network of earthquake detectors. They did a study, which was published in the well-known journal Nature, where they used a 100 kilometer long cable to learn more about a specific earthquake that happened in 2021. This means that if we can use more of these cables, we could learn more about how earthquakes work, and maybe improve our early warning systems for earthquakes. Zhang suggests that if we can get better at tracking earthquakes, it could change how we study them and help us give earlier warnings. Even though we can't predict when earthquakes will happen, using a method called distributed acoustic sensing could help us understand more about how the earth breaks apart during an earthquake. In Southern California, there are about 500 machines called seismometers spread out over an area of about 56,500 square miles. Each of these machines can cost up to $50,000, but if we used fiber optic cables instead, it would be like having millions of these machines all over the state. To turn a fiber optic cable into a seismometer, we place laser emitters at one end of the cable. These emitters shoot beams of light through the cable's thin glass strands. Inside the cable, these strands have tiny flaws that bounce back a bit of the light to the source where we record it. Each flaw acts like a marker along the cable's path, which is typically buried just below the ground's surface. When seismic waves travel through the ground, they make the cable move slightly, changing how long it takes for light to travel to and from these markers. So these flaws along the cable act like lots of mini seismometers, helping scientists see how seismic move. Before we move on, don't forget to like and subscribe to our channel. In a recent study, the research team looked at how light moved through a piece of fiber optic cable in the eastern Sierra Nevada during the 2021 Antelope Valley earthquake, which was a magnitude 6. This piece of cable, which is like having 10,000 earthquake detectors, showed that the big earthquake was actually made up of four smaller shakes, or sub-events, kind of like mini earthquakes. What's interesting is that these mini earthquakes couldn't be picked up by the usual earthquake detection networks. Working with the lab of Nadia LaPusta, a professor of mechanical engineering and geophysics, the team made a detailed model of the big earthquake using the earthquake activity they measured. This model showed exactly when the four mini earthquakes happened and where they were in the fault area. John explains that using fiber optic cables, like a network of seismometers, allows us to uncover elements of earthquake science that have been theorized but hard to visualize. He compares it to using a telescope in your backyard. With a regular telescope, you can see Jupiter, but not its moons or any fine details. However, with a very powerful telescope, you can see intricate details on the surfaces of planets and moons. Similarly, their technology provides a detailed view into the workings of earthquakes. The possibility of an earthquake along the San Andreas Fault is not a matter of if, but when. Yet, can the newly discovered alert system prevent massive destruction of lives and properties? Time holds the answer for now. Share your thoughts about this video in the comments below, and don't forget to like and subscribe for more fascinating discoveries like this. Stay tuned for the next video.