[Rockhounds] New Seismic Map of North America Reveals a Continent Under Tremendous Stress

[Kreigh Tomaszewski]

Scientists have compiled the most comprehensive map yet of tectonic stress
magnitudes across North America, highlighting regions most vulnerable to
earthquakes.

The map and associated study
<https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-15841-5>, published today in
Nature Communications, showcase the dynamic subterranean forces at play on
a continental scale.

Writing in their paper, the authors of the new study, Jens-Erik Lund Snee,
a postdoctoral fellow with the U.S. Geological Survey, and Mark Zoback, a
geophysicist at Stanford University, say it’s “the first comprehensive view
of the relative principal stress magnitudes throughout North America.”

The new map incorporates thousands of horizontal stress orientations,
revealing the directionality of high-pressure zones within the continent’s
crust. This allowed them to pinpoint seismic hotspots across North America.

Geologists and other scientists will be able to use this work for various
modeling studies, but it also serves the practical purpose of alerting
jurisdictions to seismic risks. Incredibly, the new maps don’t just
highlight areas prone to earthquakes—they also reveal the *types* of
earthquakes these places can expect.

https://gizmodo.com/new-seismic-map-of-north-america-reveals-a-continent-un-1843020591