Earthquakes and volcano eruptions around the Pacific’s ‘Ring of Fire’ have sparked fears that a ‘Big One’ quake is on the way. Scientists in California have analyzed 101 major earthquakes around the Pacific Ring of Fire, a horseshoe-shaped geological disaster zone, between 1990 and 2016. They believe a cluster of tremors around the area could indicate a “big one” is due to hit. Earthquakes have already struck in Japan, Tawain, Guam and Indonesia in the past few weeks.
Thorne Lay, professor of Earth and planetary sciences at UC Santa Cruz, said: “Based on the clustering of earthquakes in space and time, the area that has just slipped is actually more likely to have another failure.” He added that “the surrounding areas have been pushed towards failure in many cases, giving rise to aftershocks and the possibility of an adjacent large rupture sooner rather than later.” READ MORE
