Recent research that focused on a magnitude 6.6 earthquake in Iran shows that surface warping could be a sign of active faults deep below indicating that low-motion warping of the earth's surface that can happen after an earthquake on a buried fault could result in sinkholes. From this study it's been discovered that this can help us better understand the many faults that reside below Southern California.
It's understood that what happens below is not always seen on the surface because the study of the earthquake that struck Iran in 2003 showed nothing more than minor cracking. The scientists had expected to see more on the surface and were wondering how such a large rupture could stay buried?
Thus scientists started collecting satellite radar images of elevation changes on the earth's surface. While using satellites from the European Space Agency, images were collected for three and a half years and detected a narrow section of land about 5 miles long and 1,000 feet wide that had sunk 1.2 inches. The sinking area is right above where the buried fault is located which is approximately two miles down.
It's believed that the depression formed from the powerful energy unleashed by the fault during the earthquake which cracked rocks under the earth's surface. As time passed the weight of the rocks above caused the cracked rocks below to collapse and in turn the depression occurred.
Could this kind of high-resolution imagery really help us predict earthquakes in the future? The answer to that question will remain a mystery for sometime, however as further scientific information is gathered from satellites and GPS monitoring stations on the ground more buried faults may be discovered particularly since in Southern California it's understood that there many active faults that have no surface evidence.
Faulting, liquefaction, earth fissures, expansive soils; all can have effects on homes causing foundations to settle or crack and costing home owners thousands of dollars in repairs. Property I.D.'s Natural Hazard Disclosure Reports include the most complete set of seismic and soil hazard information in the industry.