Discovery of Hidden Brakes in Nature to Prevent Major Earthquakes

According to SAEDNEWS, scientists have long been searching for a way to predict devastating earthquakes and prevent them from occurring.

Deep in the eastern Pacific Ocean and nearly 1,000 miles west of Ecuador, a seafloor fault has been producing magnitude-6 earthquakes with remarkable regularity for at least 30 years. These earthquakes occur approximately every five to six years, repeatedly rupturing nearly identical sections of the fault and reaching nearly identical magnitudes. Such consistency is extremely rare in earthquake science, and researchers have long struggled to explain how this pattern continues so reliably.

Now scientists say they have finally identified the reason. A new study shows that specific regions within the fault itself act as natural braking systems that prevent earthquakes from becoming larger.

“Jianhua Gong,” a seismologist and associate professor of earth and atmospheric sciences at “Indiana University Bloomington” and the lead researcher of the project, said: “We have long known that these barriers exist, but the question has always been what they are made of and why they so regularly and reliably stop earthquakes.”

Gong and a group of researchers from other universities and scientific institutions focused on the “Gofar” transform fault located along the eastern Pacific section off the western coast of Ecuador in order to solve a decades-old mystery surrounding these recurring earthquakes.

What makes this fault unusual is that its larger earthquakes begin and stop in almost the same locations. Between the sections where major earthquakes occur, there are quieter parts of the fault that appear to absorb stress without producing major ruptures. Scientists refer to these regions as “barriers,” but their exact role had remained unclear until now.

To investigate the Gofar fault, the researchers used information collected during two major seafloor experiments, one conducted in 2008 and the other between 2019 and 2022. During those experiments, scientists placed ocean-bottom seismometers designed to detect tremors along two sections of the Gofar fault.

These seismometers recorded tens of thousands of small tremors that occurred before and after two major magnitude-6 earthquakes. This provided an extraordinarily detailed look at how the fault behaved before, during, and after major ruptures.

The researchers discovered a very similar pattern in both barrier regions. In the days and weeks before a major earthquake, the barrier regions experienced small seismic activities. Immediately after the larger earthquake occurred, the same regions became almost completely quiet.

This behavior appeared in two separate sections of the fault studied 12 years apart, leading researchers to conclude that the same physical process was responsible in both cases.

According to the study’s data, these barriers are not inactive sections of rock. They are highly complex regions where the fault splits into multiple strands. Small sideways displacements between these strands create localized openings ranging from 100 to 400 meters within the fault structure, resembling tiny gaps inside a crack.

During a major earthquake, sudden movement along the fault causes pressure inside the fluid-filled rock to rapidly decrease. When this happens, the porous rock temporarily locks up, slowing or stopping the rupture before it can spread and become larger. In effect, the barrier regions act like internal brakes within the fault.

New research suggests that barrier regions like those found at Gofar may be common throughout the ocean floor. If so, they could serve as a widespread system of natural seismic brakes that prevent some ruptures from turning into larger events.

Researchers say this discovery could help improve earthquake forecasting models designed to estimate seismic hazards along underwater faults around the world, including regions near major coastlines.