The earthquake fault that runs through the Southern California coastal city of Ventura can produce strong shaking and dangerous tsunamis, prompting state officials to study whether to revise hazard maps, according to new research.
The Los Angeles Times reported that the research shows the Ventura fault is more dangerous than previously thought, capable of producing quakes as large as magnitude 8. A large quake on the Ventura fault could spawn a tsunami that begins in the Santa Barbara Channel and affect coastal communities to the south.
The California Geological Survey said it's studying whether to redraw tsunami hazard maps in light of the new information. The maps are created to help emergency planners understand the risks involved for populated areas in the event of a tsunami, large and potentially destructive waves generated by displacements of the seafloor.
A major earthquake on the Ventura fault, which runs through downtown Ventura and into the ocean, is estimated to occur every 400 to 2,400 years. The last major quake hit about 800 years ago.
The research published last year was provided by scientists from Harvard University, USC, the U.S. Geological Survey and San Diego State. They used underground oil data, earth imaging systems and beach mapping and noted that the Ventura fault appears linked to a network of faults along the Ventura and Santa Barbara coastlines.
"These faults may form a nearly continuous surface, posing the threat of large, multisegment earthquakes," according to the study published in the Bulletin of the Seimological Society of America.
Researchers first considered the possibility after studying old stretches of shoreline along Ventura County. They noticed significant "uplift events" that produced dramatic shifts in the earth indicative of a mega-quake.
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"People should stand up and take notice," USGS geophysicist Ken Hudnut told the LA Times. "It used to be nobody would've ever claimed magnitudes of earthquakes along this fault system that were in that size range."
